The _ Circles of Hell

Dante said there was nine circles of hell and on most days I tend to agree with him.

I worked the registers today. A mother and a teenage son came through, while she was sorting through coupons and writing her check she had her son bag the groceries. Despite what they say, there is no art to bagging groceries. The best you can do is package things together to avoid a nasty mess. At any rate this kid was failing badly. Bagging is a common sense job, that's why anybody can do it even if that's all you can do. Well upon packing some fifteen items into twenty seven bags he exclaims that there was no reason for him having to do that. His mother replied by telling him that he should learn, it might be his job someday. He responded by saying that he never was going to work in a grocery store.

"Not so fast," I said. At this moment I unwittingly got up onto my soapbox and started theorizing. Nobody ever intends to work in a grocery store. It's more of a passage through life. No wait, that's putting it nicely. It's a necessary passage through your own personal hell.

I guess Dante would call it one of the nine circles of hell. Had he lived to see modern day society anyway. It's something you wander into, but out of necessity, not like wandering into a park. You know that lovely stage of life when you need something to keep you from dangling over the edge of poverty. Well not to overdramatize or ramble on but the grocery store represents the "menial jobs" circle of hell. You know the circle of hell that follows the circle of hell known as high school.

That's two circles of hell right there. I'm young yet, I have no idea what the other seven are. They probably have something to do with getting a 9 to 5 job, or retiring and playing bingo. I know that would surely be hell for me.

Then I stepped back off of the soapbox and the world started running again.