Five Dollars An Apple

She slams around aimlessly trying to stop the alarm, but the fact that it’s the 3rd snooze and now 7:45 won’t change. She’s late for work.

Damn it Ashley! You can’t be late today.

This is what that 3rd alarm brings to her mind. She is now hurrying out of bed.

No time for showering.

No time for make up. She’ll put her face on while on the bus.

No time to pack a lunch. She’ll buy something in the convenience store across the street.

That is… if she’ll even make it that far into the day. Her habit of getting late to the Cricket store has earned more attention than she’d like. Just last Thursday, her manager scolded her:

Ashley, if you can’t seem to make it to work on time, you might not have to work at all.

Fucking pig. It’s not enough that he constantly pats her on the back for being a team player, albeit a little to low in the back. The guy’s married and has kids almost her age. #gross

But that’s another topic. Right now, she’s headed to work late… again, on a Monday morning. One of the busiest days.

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Well, she made it. Lunchtime!

Oh yeah: no lunch. :-/

And it’s not like she has a budget to spend on lunch anyway, but the morning didn’t give her time to make the usual turkey sandwich.

To the Circle K!

All she has is 3 bucks; should be enough for an apple and maybe some yogurt thing about to expire.

Today wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t even that busy. Not the usual butt-load of customers.

It’s a beautiful day outside. The first of May, usually not too hot, even in the Valley of the Sun.

There seems to be a noisy crowd coming up the street.

La gente! Unida! Jamas será vencida!

Who knows what that means?! She’ll check it out after getting lunch.

She walks into the Circle K.

FIVE dollars an apple?

She didn’t realize she said this out loud. The cashier nods with little amusement:

Yeah, that’s not the only thing messing up around here. We’re lucky to have apples.

What do you mean?

Don’t you know? The wetbacks have been refusing to work. Messing everything up. Including the price of your apples.

Oh yeah, she’s heard of this, on Fox News maybe. Illegals refusing to work for weeks, economy crumbling. Something like that. She didn’t think it would have this effect though. Now she can’t afford lunch. What the fuck?

But why are apples so damn expensive now?

Well, it’s not just the apples. Eggs, milk, potatoes, these people harvest everything.

So why not give those jobs to Americans that should have those jobs in the first place?

Oh they’ve tried. But it seems you can’t get away with paying Americans what they pay the wetbacks. Apparently, the white boys would only do the work for 3 times as much, and only 8 hours a day to top it all off. So that’s why your apple now costs 5 dollars.

Wow, she never thought about it like that.

If you want to some food, that crowd up the street protesting might have some. Seems like a real party.

Is this guy serious?! They just made my lunch more expensive, no way I’m gonna buy some food from them. They’re the ones causing all this.

But her stomach’s growling.

Maybe I’ll go check it out.