While actually on-shift at Safeway, I try my best to be a bastion of civility and service. This website is my outlet, so I certainly can't blame it's readers for considering me an uncouth loudmouth hooligan - I merely wish to point out that I'm really not; not at work, anyway. And when circumstances spin out of control, and I just can't take it anymore, I try to vent my frustration at one of my underling clerks, a foreigner employee who can't understand me or a particularly deserving customer. Rarely do I dare vent upwards to my superiors, since my unique style of venting is often categorized as belligerence, incitement to riot, and/or verbal assault.

I'd like to discuss a rare and recent departure from this norm.

It's 8:30 at night, and I've been working since 5. My supervisor is Brenda, who is generally angry because it took her ten years to leave an abusive marriage and thinks this entitles her to an easier go of life than everyone else gets. But I digress. My first and only attempt to communicate with Brenda this evening was a "Hello" as I began my shift. Met with stony silence, I resolved to avoid her for the rest of the night. So 8:30 arrives and with it, Nick. He's doing a little personal shopping. It's been a few days since I've seen my dear buddy, so I decide to take my break 15 minutes early and chat outside the store. Nick buys me a Snickers bar, I announce my departure to the cashier manning the customer service, and we head out. Unfortunately, the only other Courtesy Clerk on shift is Curtis, who decides to join our little tête-a-tête outside the store.

We chat, and I absent-mindedly free the cap liner from my bottle of Coke. I win a free bottle, so I'm pretty psyched. It's not a lot, but I like to savour the simple pleasures. After about five minutes, Brenda - justifiably upset at the total absence of servant boys inside the store - marches outside with Art, the grocery supervisor. "Who's on break?", she demands. 3 fingers, one mine, one Nick's and one Curtis's, point at me. "Your break is at 9. You're taking it early?" Her tone is in some odd place between questioning and informing.

"Mmhmm, obviously." I reply, savouring the warm pleasure of being unimpeachably in the right.

"And does this break include the 15 minutes you spent walking around the store doing nothing?", she sneers. I'm tempted to ask which 15 minutes she's referring to, since there have been so very many. But in all honesty, I had been actually working right before my break, and for most of the evening. My hackles raise, but I am still polite.

"Brenda, I was doing returns, like I was asked."

"Oh, no you weren't". Her certainly is ferocious, and quite offensive.

"Brenda, if you can't be bothered to pay attention to what I'm doing, I'd suggest you not speak on the topic at all. I know what I was doing." My reply is still calm and measured. I'm actually not angry yet.

Brenda begins to walk away "I..." Her retort is lost to the ages, because all of a sudden I'm angry. I'm so sick of working diligently and effectively at my actual job and being harassed and accused because I don't perform everyone else's duties perfectly when they are fobbed off on me. I'm perfectly justified in taking a break 15 minutes early, this night or any other.

"Go to hell, Brenda."

It hangs there for a moment that is somehow neither short nor long. Nick, Curtis and Noella, the audience of this production, look a little shocked, possibly more amused. Brenda and Art slowly turn to me and both begin to speak at once. I catch Art saying "You'd better watch your attitude, son" and retort:

"My name is Ian, and I'm not your son." Behind him, Brenda is talking about me going home. I'm being sent home. I'm already completely calm again.

As Brenda and Art storm inside, laughter erupts. Curtis has crept back inside, proving himself the wiser of we two, but Nick and Noella are still present and effusing their disbelief and delight at my unveiled insubordination. To Nick, I say the only thing that comes to mind.

"Give me a ride home?"

So I get home, 2 hours early. In time to watch a little TV, chill out on the couch and talk to my girlfriend before she goes to bed. Lost wages: -$17. Free Coke & Sinkers: $2. Saying what I meant, when I meant it: Priceless.