On Tuesday, October 30th, things had reached a boiling point inside Lucy’s in Disguise Costume Shop in Austin.
Although it was only two hours into my shift, I was already exhausted. A man had jerked off in the dressing rooms at 11, under my watch, frightening a group of children; in response, Gwen, my angry, overweight, over-pierced supervisor, had assigned me the mind-numbingly boring task of hanging things up.
The store was packed and in order to reach the racks, I had to push my way through mobs of crazed customers fighting over sizes. The costumes were heavy, they reeked of sweat and perfume, and at the alarming rate people were trying them on, it was unlikely my pile would ever diminish.
At $8/hr, I decided, this just wasn’t worth it. Surreptitiously dropping the costumes I had in hand onto the floor, I walked to the back of the store, got down on hands and knees, and climbed between the racks. To hide and think about my problems.
My problems, at that point, were numerous, though mainly financial in nature. $350 for rent was due the next day, and I only had $330 in my bank account. My few valuable posessions had already been pawned, and I wouldn’t be receving my check from the costume shop for another couple of weeks. Alternating between munching on some candy I found on the floor and neurotically chewing off my nails, I hyperventilated.
There was one solution to avoid eviction that I kept coming back to: plasma sales.
