Typical Day
Iris McKenzie wakes up 7:29AM, just moments ahead of her alarm clock. The blazing desert sun is shining on her face. Ahh, Texas. Iris is an optician at a LensGrinders in Wedgehead Mall and lives in a suburb of El Paso. True to her routine, she hits the snooze button the first of three times. Thirty minutes and a couple weird dreams later, Iris rolls out from under the covers, warm as a pig in a wool blanket.
Iris isn't far from the mall, and by 8:42AM she's strapping on her bike helmet, mounting her Huffy, and zipping away from her quaint desert home. She takes a lackadaisical ride through the back roads in a pointless effort not to get sweaty, and arrives outside the mall with drenched toe socks.
Iris parks her bike at the bike rack on the north wall, knowing that it'll probably be the only bike anyone brings to the mall all day, if not all year. Texas likes it's big ol' cars.
Wedgehead is like the premier mall of the eastern suburbs of El Paso. Ipso facto, the Wedgehead LensGrinders is a pretty hot spectacle spot. Being that Iris is a rather trendy woman, it only fits that she's the one outfitting the greater El Paso area with only the most up-to-date frames.
Iris is opening today, and at 8:58AM sharp, she unlocks and lifts up the metal chain gate that mall stores have. Getting the shop ready is a pretty simple task. She turns on the lights, boots up the computer, and switches the phones off of night mode.
They don't take appointments, only walk-ins. It looks like all the outstanding orders were filled last night, so until a customer walks in, there's really not much to do. She fiddles with the radio and finds the Top 40 station.
Around 9:03AM, Laurie, the manager walks in, looking a little harried.
"You're late," Iris teases.
"Don't start with me today, Iris," Laurie responds groggily, taking a seat at the cashier's desk. "Go help that customer."
Sure as shootin', a customer has walked in and started staring at the wall full of frames options. Iris offers to help, and the man shows her a shattered pair of athletic glasses. Poor guy had been in just last week getting these things, Iris recalled.
After hopping on the computer and pulling the unlucky fellow's records from the system, Iris helps the gentleman pick a sturdier (though slightly less stylish) pair of frames that fulfill his warranty. The lens prescription is the same, so Iris prints up a new order for the lab techs and tells the fella he'll get a call when the specs are ready. Luckily, he has an extra pair.
At 10:37AM, the next customer brings in a new prescription, fresh from the ophthalmologist, and Iris is amazed that he'd been walking around (let alone driving around) with eyes that bad. She keeps her opinions to herself, and helps the customer pick out some lovely designer frames. She even sells him on the glare protection treatment.
Meanwhile, Laurie does inventory and makes calls to customers whose orders have come back from the lab. After the customer leaves, Iris takes a quick lunch in the mall's food court at 11:45AM.
By 2:00PM, Iris' shift is over. She's a part-timer at around twenty-five to thirty hours a week, which suits her just fine. She pays cheap rent and the minimal benefits she earns are enough to keep her relatively healthy.
Though she's still a little full from lunch, Iris knows her buddy Ned down at Pretzel Palace will have a fully loaded, "cheez-stuffed" monster pretzel for her if he's working, so she heads down there. Unfortunately, Ned has just finished his shift as well. He invites her to join him and a couple other friends to go see the new Adam Sandler adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Iris really wanted that pretzel, but popcorn sounds good too. After the movie, Ned and his pals are planning to go to the park, toss the Frisbee around, and then hit downtown for a couple drinks. After all, it's Friday. Iris feels bloated from her popcorn feast, and opts to head home around 6:15PM and take care of the menial tasks that being a person involves, like dishes and laundry (both overflowing in her case).
By the time Iris begins to stir from her bare-minimum-chore-session-nap, it's midnight and the day is long done. That means there's no reason to describe Iris' bizarre after-midnight activities to you, so let it suffice to say that it involved bacon, an online spaceship-battle video game, and talking smack to her Korean pen pals. Overall, this Saturday is off to a pretty sweet start.