9:05 a.m.
Rodney was late for work again.
Thankfully his boss was kind to him on that regard, maybe way too kind according
to his assistance record.
"Hey Rodney!", a cheerful voice greeted him, "Caught on traffic again, I presume?"
Rodney could feel the gleeful sarcasm on Mr. Jacob's voice, knowing full well that
his little town has never had enough vehicular activity to justify coming in 5
minutes late.
Specially since Rodney lived just down the street.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Jacob, i just had a though time getting out of bed..."
Jacob sighed and made a gesture telling him to take a seat besides him.
The shop wasn't anything particularly fancy, just a bunch of shelves stacked with goodies and the desk. Still, the walk up the desk felt eternal for Rodney.
"¿What's bugging you, boy?", Jack asked.
Look, if it's the holiday rush for the Autumn Festival it's okay, you're a though cookie and you'll get through-"
"It's not that", Rodney interrupted, "I'm just tired, that's all".
The silence afterwards was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"Well, anyways", Said Mr. Jacob, trying to salvage the situation, "Ya' better put
some pep on your step then!"
"I don't want ya' scaring off the clientele with that grimace of yours, HEH!"
"Yeah, Mr. Jacob...", he replied, still without much pep on his step.
"Oh, and please, stop calling me that, Rodney"
"Call me [[Jack]]!, we've known each other for a while, I think you've earned it!"
"Yeah... Jack".
The rest of the shift was unremarkable. Rodney hated working behind the counter at a
grocery shop, "Jacob's Goodies" was the place's name.
Other than the occasional grandma buying discounted milk and the rare teen buying rolling paper,
it was a real slow and stagnant job.
During the next 8 hours he kept thinking back to that weird videogame he seemed to
download last night. ¿Was it a fangame?, ¿a weird port?, ¿maybe he should've deleted
it?, ¿what if-?
Ding!
The doorbell chimed and derailed his train of thought, it was Sammy, his coworker
for the closing shift. The list of things that made Rodney's life in this little spot
in a forgotten corner in the middle of nowhere a little more bearable was laughably small,
and Sammy was one of them.
"Yo, dude! ¿Ready to go home?"
"H-hey! Sammy!, how's it going...? pal?", Sammy giggled.
"I guess that's a yes, say, ¿anything interesting happened?", he asked, making his way to the back of the counter.
"Nah... Another boring day at Jacob's, nothing interesting ever happens in this god-forsaken town...", Rodney let out a sigh while grabbing his things.
"C'mon, bucko, cheer up!", Sammy exclaimed, "Look, ¿how about we go to the arcade
and hit up some points? Maybe we'll even get a prize this time around!"
"Alright", he responded, seemingly lost in thought, "When's that gonna be?"
"Saturday, duh!, unless Jack suddenly felt extra-kind and gave us extra break days!"
"Heh, yeah, duh", Rodney yawned loudly, clearly tired after last night, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then!"
"Cya bud!".
Ding!
It wasn't until he reached his home and started looking for his keys in his bag
that he realized...
"¡¿DID I JUST GET A DATE?!"