DEATH THREAT FOR A HITMAN
by Gary Jonas

     Whenever I doubt that I should be killing people, I take a job working with the public.  People are so damn rude and stupid that I often wonder why no one has already killed them.

     Check this out.

     I hadn't made any money doing freelance hits in a long time and I needed money to eat, so like an idiot, I took a job in a grocery store.  Thanks to my sunny disposition, they tossed me to the sharks in the customer service booth.  No training, you understand, just gave me the keys and said, "Good luck."

     A partial list of my responsibilities:  rent videos, sell money orders, handle processed film, Western Union, UPS, lotto, keno and scratch lottery tickets, personal, payroll and government checks, handle complaints and returns, make sure the checkers and sackers got their breaks and lunches on time, count the money out of the checkers' tills and run change out to them when they need it, sell ski lift tickets, circus tickets, air show tickets, bus passes and bus tokens and answer the goddamn phones and the list goes on.  But the real kicker is that you have to do it all at the same time.

     My first day on the job is the first of the month, which means I have to deal with the welfare bitches.  I used to work in a check cashing place before I became a hitman, so I already know all about them.  So here I am, trying my damnedest to be nice to a bunch of losers who draw a check for sitting on their lazy asses.  Some lady gives me her welfare check, ID and check cashing card.  I run it through the machine like I'm supposed to, which I gotta tell you is a royal pain in the ass.  See, it takes forever and a day for the machine to approve the damn checks.  Meanwhile, fifty thousand more impatient jerk-offs are jumping in line to cash their checks.

     The machine is supposed to read the micro line along the bottom of the check, but that rarely works and I have to punch in the number by hand.  One slip of the finger and you have to start all over, repunching the nineteen digits.  Whoever designed this goddamn machine has never tried to get it to work when some jerk has stuffed a check into his or her pocket for half a day, crinkling it up like a wad of trash.  Speedier service thanks to high tech equipment.  Yeah right.

     I make a note to find out who designed this stupid machine so I can find him and kill him.

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