Have a Nice Day, a Modern Horror Story

Okay, I just made up the last bit there; This story is just Have a Nice Day, and is one of the projects I've always felt would be successful if I'd just finish the damn thing. Featuring Christopher Roberts (who would one day go on to be Max of the Elsewhere Incorporate), this is the story of the retail megastore of the future!  Having absorbed every other local business into itself, the Sol-Mart Corporation is considered a fixture in many towns, and are often as large as shopping malls.

Enter Christopher Roberts (totally chosen for how similar it sounds to Christopher Robin); a young inventor fresh out of High School, he decides to go to work for the company, as he thinks it's a good job.  He likes helping people, after all. He will quickly learn, however, that working in retail isn't as nice as the training videos suggest.

Christopher Roberts mentality is partially based on my own experience (or arguably, my own inexperience), and along with another character who I've yet to properly name (I'm calling him mister cynical at the moment) serve as a before-after image of my retail career, hopefully behind me for good.  Christopher is young, idealistic, and eager to prove himself, while Cynical is battered, grumpy, and disillusioned after years of working for a soul-less corporation that values money far more than people. 

While there is an overarching plot, most of the story is just little tales I picked up and/or experienced throughout my own time working at various retail stores.  I poke fun at everyone; the customers, the employees, the managers, the over-the-store management, and myself most of all. That's why I feel this project would be successful; retail has touched most of our lives at this point, not necessarily in a good way.

While I explained my internal dilemma with Simply Encredible, I don't really have a reason why I haven't finished this story.  I just ... haven't been in the mood to mess with it.  Blame it on my laziness, or on the bad taste working at retail places like Wal-mart has left in my mouth, but I just don't find myself wanting to mess with this one very often.