1
Two and three quarters of an hour into Allen's absolutely soul crushing shift, he suddenly had a great idea. What if, by some random chance, just one bag of chips went missing? Surely nobody would notice. Surely not Emma, restocking the shelves, and surely not the Boss, sitting in the back, on his lazy ass, counting the money.
Unfortunately for Allen, two and one quarter of an hour later, he did not have a job anymore. Allen had completely forgotten that Emma, being the goodie-two shoes, tattle-tale that she is, had seen him tell the Boss what she had seen him very obviously take. Allen wasn't exactly the most subtle or graceful man out there, and Emma wasn't the first to notice either.
After throwing some choice words out at both Emma and his ex-boss, Allen decided it was probably time to head home. He had no idea how he would manage to keep this a secret from his parents. He was sure that they were planning on throwing him out as soon as he "graduated" (if he did, anyways), and this certainly would not make matters any better.
Back on the road home, now that he was not so focused on work, he could finally "stop and smell the roses" as they say. The sun just now beginning to set, put Allen in a very reflective mood, and he was just barely able to look around at the sycamore trees and corn fields around him, and feel just a small tug on the heart-string. He often felt as if everyone around him was just a little over-emotional, and he was the only sane one left in this shitty town. But now, it may have been the scenery, or it may have been Allen realizing that his youth was just getting ready to tie its own ends, he began to finally feel something.
Once again, Allen arrived to an empty house. The fourth time just this week that his parents hadn't come home. He headed on upstairs, before realizing he should probably feed the dog his parents were also neglecting.
Daisy, although seldom being fed regularly, still managed to be as fat as could be. Possibly because she had dug a hole in the fence, that none of Allen's family had yet to notice, and would often go out during the daytime, and wait beside their local restaurant for any leftovers people would bring out to her.
As soon as Daisy saw her owner Allen, she did not jump up out of joy or excitement as she used to, rather, she just laid there, as Allen had not actually even touched the dog in over three years, and she had felt as if she had gotten more affection from the townspeople she was now beginning to recognize more than her owners. When Allen did pour her generic dog food, she got up and lazily walked over to the bowl.
When Allen went up the creaky stairs to his messy bedroom, he stripped off his clothes and fell onto his bed almost immediately. He clearly did not mind the fact that his floor, rather than being the original brown-stained carpet it used to be, before he had entered high school, was now more of a "dirty-clothes-cover-every-inch-of-the-floor" material. Most of his drawers were full of whatever shit he had filled his pockets with, and his desk had what looked to be an early-2000s computer, probably bought from the money he earned from the job he used to have.
And under the spell of monotony, finally being broken, Allen fell asleep.