Cherie Hunter Day
Every Day Except Thursdays
The grocery store bagger stands at the end of the register checkout finger-combing her long, very straight, chestnut brown hair. She looks bored. She combs the right side first—five or six strokes, then switches to the left for the same amount of care. She flings her hair back and immediately brings the right side forward again for a second raking. In the meantime, the scanned items are piling up in front of her. When they meet some critical mass, she begins to place them in a bag. A bottle of white wine stalls on the conveyor belt.
Cashier: She can’t touch that.
Customer: What if I place it in the bag for her?
Cashier: Then she can’t touch the bag. It’s company policy.
Customer: I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.
Cashier: We’d both like to keep our jobs. She is only fifteen but when she turns sixteen, she can handle alcohol. Thanks for understanding.
paid time-and-a-half
for overtime and holidays…
searching through
a whole bag of candy hearts
for the ones with BE MINE
About the Author
Cherie Hunter Day has written haibun since 2000. Her haibun “In Rumble Dark” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. Recent collections include A House Meant Only for Summer (Red Moon Press, 2023) and Miles Deep in a Drum Solo (Backbone Press, 2022), which won a 2022 Touchstone Distinguished Book Award. She lives in Auburn, New Hampshire.