“Welcome to SuperLife, where your life becomes super! How may I help you today?”

Catherine smiled as she repeated the slogan with the same enthusiasm priests gave during a eulogy. The customer, a fat, middle-aged woman with thin blond hair, wearing a blouse two sizes too small gave her barely a cursory glance before she resumed screaming into her earpiece, her phone clutched in one hand and a mini-microwave—yes, an entire microwave—tucked under her other arm.

“I [i]told[/i] you, Harold,” the woman said, loud enough for the other three customers to hear her. “Three isn’t enough. I need [i]four[/i]. Four!”

[i]Four of what?[/i] Cat wondered. [i]No, never mind, I really don’t want to know.[/i]

Her eyes glazed over as the woman continued to scream at this mysterious Harold. Was he her brother, perhaps? Maybe her husband? What kind of man would let himself be tied down by a woman like this? Though considering her magnitude and bearing, the poor fool likely didn’t have much choice in the matter.

Catherine’s thoughts drifted further as she held back a yawn. The Heritage had been packed to bursting last night. She remembered peeking out of the curtains on stage at the crowd, her stomach full of excitement and anticipation. And hope. Hope that she would gain a bit more of a following, a bit more notoriety, a bit more attention from the common people. As always, the applause was polite at first, and she didn’t actually start drawing attention until she walked up a wall she lined with metal before her performance started.

Spinning, twisting, twirling in the air, her dress skirt held down by tiny magnets inside the fabric, her voice echoing out from the stage to pull the crowd in. [i]Watch me, see me, join me. Bask in the revel and be free.[/i]

No one had joined her, of course. Oh, a few drunks danced, but that was typical for that time of night. She wouldn’t know if she did well until after her morning shift was over, when she could finally take a break and look at her Pasithee. She usually gained an influx of followers after a performance like last night, but sometimes…well, it wasn’t a guaranteed thing.

The woman was still screaming at her husband. Or brother. Male relative. There were five other people waiting in line behind her now, Julie was still on her smoke break, and the manager had about as much sense as a cockerel strutting blindly through a lion’s den. So she was stuck here, trapped in her little bulletproof cage, waiting for customers to bring their defective products up to her and complain about them not working.

The woman finally put the microwave on the counter and put her back to Cat, so she deftly snatched the power cord and connected it to the socket under the counter. The appliance didn’t power up as expected, but instead just sat there, as dead as if she’d plugged it into a chunk of wood. She pulled the side panel open and peeked inside, but couldn’t see anything wrong from there. She’d have to take the whole thing apart to find out what the problem was. Maybe a blown fuse?

“When did this stop working, ma’am?” Cat asked, glancing up at the woman. The fat old bitch ignored her. Irritated, and before she could stop herself, Cat reached out—not with her hand, but with the essence that constantly surrounded her—and enveloped the woman’s earpiece. Then she changed...something, and a high-pitched whine began to drone from the woman's earpiece, causing the woman to flinch and yank the device from her ear. 

It was one of those expensive pieces, Cat was satisfied to see. High quality, long battery life. Ruined now, because of a simple magnetic charge. The woman scowled and finally turned to look at Cat, who was busy printing a form for credit on the device.

“Here you are, ma’am,” Cat said, as sweetly as she could. “You can use this store credit to purchase any microwave we stock of equal value as this.”

“[i]Store[/i] credit?” the woman asked, flabbergasted—a state Cat suspected she was perpetually trapped in. “I don’t want [i]store[/i] credit; I want my money back.”

“All sales made at SuperLife are final, and we offer only credit in return for defective goods.”

“That’s not what I was told last time I came here. Where is your manager?”

“He is on a conference call at the moment, but I can—”

“Winters!”

Catherine flinched. Then she sighed and turned to see her manager, Thomas, storming towards her with a thunderous expression. The conference call was over, apparently, and it hadn’t gone well for Mr. Perfect judging by his mood. He was shorter than her, though she wasn’t that tall herself, pudgy and balding, though he looked to be in his early thirties.

“Are you giving out store credits without approval again?” he demanded, then added to the woman, “I’m sorry ma’am, I’ll be right with you.”

“I’m following company policy, sir,” Cat said. “Defective products brought in and returned are exchanged for store credit. That’s what I was taught during training.”

Thomas shook his head. “Well, you’re wrong. Return the customer’s credit—in full—and fill out the RMA for returning this unit. I won’t have you stealing from me again.”

[i]That wasn’t me,[/i] Cat thought, but didn’t say. [i]That was my friend Angelli. Totally different. And you’ve been stealing shit and giving it to Julie, who’s been sucking your dick every day for five months straight.[/i]

Regardless, she did as she was told. She was an upstanding, model citizen, after all. Never mind that she sent Angelli a text about a certain broken microwave lying out back. Angie, or one of her friends, would grab the thing later tonight and carry it back to their apartment. It was a perfectly good microwave, after all. At least it would be once Cat fixed whatever problem it had.

“Welcome to SuperLife,” she said to the next customer in line. “Where your life becomes super. What did we screw up this time?”