It was all fun and games until one day, when Rose was on a particularly successful streak, I got desperate and pressed a woman who I should’ve known was a clear and obvious “no” if she was absolutely sure she didn’t want to save 15 percent off her gorgeous selection of capri pants and crop tops (“Even if you don’t qualify, you’ll still get the discount off these amazing looks!”) and she snapped and launched into a long (and not at all unwarranted) tirade on why corporations were ruining the middle class, and at some point in her screams, I’m pretty sure she predicted the 2008 financial crisis, but I wasn’t entirely sure because I was crying at the time.

After that incident—and a not-so-gentle reminder from my boss that the point of offering discounts was to try to get approved applications so we could screw people for months and not just one day—I eased off my grind and allowed Rose to take it away. I figured I’d let her have this. Cosmically speaking, letting Rose get ahead was my way of making up for Janice. Even though that clearly wasn’t the case.

•  •  •

My third and final job as a struggling adolescent (before I graduated college and became a struggling adult) was a desk job at the law school of my undergraduate alma mater. I thought, for a few terrifying months, that perhaps I’d graduate and go to law school. Nothing in my professional history suggested this was a good idea, but I was an asshole and I liked money, so I figured I might be able to give it a shot. Working at a law school would put me right where the action was.

I got an interview and wore my finest shirt and tie, tucked into my finest khakis. It was June, the beginning of the height of summer in Chicago, and ninety degrees outside. I was living at home in the suburbs that summer, and the law school was downtown, right down the street from the famous Chicago water tower, but a full train ride and bus ride away from where I was.