story02

Help Wanted

by Tony DeSimone

So this was the place: the almost finished supermarket where she was hoping to find work.

She looked up at the covered sign that concealed the name of the store. Strange, she thought, they hadn't put the name in the newspaper ad either. However, she needed the job, so she walked in anyway.

She had been out of work for a couple weeks now, and she was already starting to feel the hunger pains caused from being able to afford only lettuce and other cheap vegetables.

Despite the trouble she was having, she still didn't regret quitting her previous job. Most of the workers in that workplace had been human males, and being the only female deer morph there, she had felt somewhat out of place. No one who worked there was of high stature or maturity, so she had to put up with being called names like "Deary" and "Bambi." Humans! she thought. Can't even make up new insults.

Because most of her coworkers were men, certain events took place that finally convinced her to quit.

She still needed to make money, though, so after searching through the want ads she chanced upon an ad asking for someone to become the manager of a new supermarket. She figured that this job would give her at least the respect of her coworkers, so she had called the number in the ad and had made an appointment to meet with the owner at the supermarket. Strange, she had realized, I've never heard of a job interview at a supermarket. But she decided to go anyway since she had nothing better to do.

She walked in through the front doors. They would soon be automatic but were now silent and dependent on being pushed. As she walked in, she noticed a middle-aged wolf in a normal business suit standing behind one of the registers.

Great, she thought. Predators made her almost as nervous as humans did, but once again her urge to eat more food than lettuce convinced her to continue.

"Hello Ms. -" the wolf paused to look down at her application, "Ms. Vensun." As he revealed a strange looking grin, he said, "It's good to see that you're on time."

"Oh, thank you," she responded. "Thank you Mr. um?"

"Ungray," the wolf filled in.

"Yes, uh, thank you Mr. Ungray"

"Please, have a seat," he said as he gestured toward a chair in front of the register. Ms. Vensun sat down cautiously.

"Ms. Vensun," Mr. Ungray started, "have you had any experience with managing or working in grocery stores?"

"No, sir," she replied. "Unfortunately, I haven't"

"None at all?"

"Well, I usually buy my food from a grocery store," she followed this with a nervous laugh. The wolf didn't so much as smirk, so she decided to wipe the smile off her own face.

Ms. Vensun waited for another question, but Mr. Ungray seemed content to just sit there and stare at her. It wasn't a "mentally undressing her" stare, and she couldn't think of any other kind of stare at the time, so she just ignored it.

After a long moment of silence, Ms. Vensun decided to ask a question herself. "So, um, did you want to know anything else?"

"No," Mr. Ungray answered. "Not at the moment"

After another moment of silence, the wolf finally spoke, "Could you stand up please?"

"Um, yeah, sure," she replied. She then slowly stood up, albeit with a very puzzled look on her face.

The wolf then got up as well and looking her over closely. Once again she noticed that this was not done in a sexual way. It seemed more as if he were inspecting her or something.

"What are you doing?" she inquired.

"Oh, nothing really," he answered back.

This day just keeps getting stranger and stranger, she thought.

Suddenly, she felt a quick, sharp pain on her side; the bastard had pinched her!

With that she whirled around to face the wolf, who was supposed to be interviewing her, and started yelling in his face. "Look, my little canine friend," she yelled, poking his chest with her finger, "I don't know what the hell you're doing, but you had better tell me now!"

"I was just checking to see if you were tender," he blurted out nervously. He then gasped, realizing that he had said something he shouldn't.

The puzzled look returned to her face.

"What?" she said.

"Umm, nothing," the wolf said, desperately trying to cover up something.

"What did you mean by tender?!" she yelled as she grabbed the collar of his shirt. She noticed that he was actually shorter than she was.

"Well, uhh -" he paused, trying to think of a good answer, "you have to be tender. Uh, for your job."

"I thought I was here to apply for manager," she yelled in his face.

"Well, actually, we had another position in mind for you," he said, revealing a nervous grin.

"This is ridiculous!" cried Ms. Vensun. "I'm leaving!"

With that comment, she dropped Mr. Ungray to the floor and began storming her way out of the store.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Mr. Ungray in a "make my day" sort of way.

Ms. Vensun began to whirl around once again. "And why the hell n -," she was cut off when she whirled around to see the barrel of a gun pointing towards the vicinity of her face.

Most "normal" people would have been scared, but Ms. Vensun was just too stressed out to worry about this.

"I can't believe this," she started yelling again, "First, you start lookin' at me weird and then you start going on about being tender!"

"Well, you have to be tender if we expect anyone to eat you!" Mr. Ungray yelled as he pushed the gun farther into her face.

"Eat me?" she said, puzzled.

"Yes!" Mr. Ungray continued yelling. "You wanna know what position you were really applying for? As part of the groceries, that's what! I had to get you in the supermarket so I could get you stored in the freezer right away!"

"You're insane," muttered our deer Ms. Vensun.

"Oh c'mon!" cried the wolf, "Predators will pay a lot for deer meat, and we're not about to disappoint them."

During this conversation, Ms. Vensun had been slowly slipping her shoes off, for she was about to put her hooves to good use.

"Now, don't move and I can make this quick," said the wolf as he got ready to pull the trigger. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get the chance to make anything quick. Ms. Vensun slammed one of her hooves as hard as possible into his shins.

Mr. Ungray screamed and fell over onto his face. Ms. Vensun took advantage of the moment and bolted for the door.

"COME BACK HERE!!!" cried Mr. Ungray, who was now unable to get up. He began shooting at her in an attempt to stop her from getting away. Fortunately, Mr. Ungray was a worse shot than Ms. Vensun was a runner.

Ms. Vensun zoomed out of the door just as she heard a bullet shatter the glass behind her.

She kept running until she reached her car. Then she immediately jumped in and started driving away.

"On second thought," she said to herself, "maybe I could live off my unemployment checks for a couple more weeks." And with that in mind, she drove back home.

This has been some more strange fuzzy stuff on top of your cheese brought to you by Tony DeSimone.