Barron's on the Bus

I used to ride the 14 bus line. Today, from our new digs in North Minneapolis, I rode the 19. Two women behind me compared notes on how to pottie train a two-year old and the cost of Pampers. Then one of them asked the other if she was still working at Wal-Mart.

You still working at Wal-Mart?

Fuck no. I dumped that sorry-ass job, told them bitches to kiss my ass.

I thought you liked it there.

They changed their attendance policy. If I gotta take my kid to the doctor, even I got a letter from the doctor, that’s a god damn unexcused absence.

What?

Yeah, no shit. They be like, “we don’t care you got kids, you can’t be calling in sick just because they sick.”

Man. That’s crap.

Yeah. Crap alright. I’ll tell you crap. They be like I gotta schedule my sits.

Your what?

Like if I need to sit down for a minute, I gotta schedule that in.

Your breaks?

No, like if I sit down, they gotta fuckin’ know my ass is sittin’ down in advance.

Like what's yo' ass's schedule? Man. You used to like it there.

Yeah but then they didn’t treat us like shit. Like now, I know a lot of Moms quittin. Fuckin’ welfare’s better than that. I mean I like to work, you know, get the hell away from that kid, he’s two and half, he is into shit, I mean fucking into everything, makin’ me crazy, like I could just drop his ass in Chicago or something, but you know what I’m sayin’, I’d rather work. But not if they treat me like I’m a piece of shit, like they can’t trust me or like I don’t have a fuckin’ life, like I’m so fuckin’ desperate they can abuse my shit.

I heard they got rid of the lay-away.

Tha’s right. Yeah, I don’t know about other places, but if you got something on lay-away in Minneapolis, you better get your ass over they by November 18 or it’s gone.

Why they do that?

They say it’s like people using it too much like a bank account. No shit I’m thinking, if I had a fucking bank account full of money, would I need god damn law-away? Thing is, you know, used to be if I need to buy something I see at Target, I can’t afford it just yet, but I really need it, I just go to Wal-Mart. So Wal-Mart get all this business from Target. So now I guess we’re all going to K-Mart. Who gonna get all that business now? Fucking K-Mart ‘cause you know I don’t give a shit where I buy their cheap-ass shit.

So where you gonna work?

My sister start her own business a couple years ago. She made $400,000 last year. No shit. She needs help, I’m gonna be her partner. I can bring my kid to work, nobody talking to me about when my ass can sit down, and I’ll make more money anyway. See what these bitches don’t get is I work real fuckin’ hard, and I’m not stupid, and I’m not screwin’ anybody. So fuck that, I’ll go work hard for my sister.

Yeah.

Then my stop was up. Hmm. I used to get my business news and analysis in the paper. Who knew I could just ride the bus?