James was excited to be starting his first day of work. At least, he would have been excited if he had been hired by anything other than McDonald’s. Fucking McDonald’s, of course. Whatever. Work was work, money was money. He sighed heavy, fidgeted with his name tag and walked in.

He approached the desk and eyed up the skinny pale cashier. “Hi, my name is: Brett”. Tired, apathetic, almost angry looking. God dammit, James thought, this is going to be me in about two months. He put on his best plastic smile and said “Hey, uh, is Brad here?”. The guy known only as Brett craned his neck and hollered “BRAD!”.

A balding man in one of those very fucking gay fry cook hats, a bow tie, and an apron walked out from behind the vast silver equipment one can see in a fast food restaurant but not know what the fuck they do. He smiled, sort of. “You must be–” Brad glanced at his name tag “–James.” James nodded. Asshole. Brad nodded in return, probably thinking the same thing. “Follow me.”

Brad led James into a cramped area. There wasn’t much, but it was still cramped. James stared at the floor. He’d probably drop a lot of burgers on the floor, on purpose, then give them to the customer. The unknowing, poor bastard customer. Fuck yeah, take that society! Whatever. Brad was rambling. Better pay attention.

“Okay, so, you’ll be working the drive-thru.” Brad pointed to everything as he named it off. “This is the fryer. You fry shit in it. Don’t try and burn your hands or try to kill yourself.” He looked at James. “It doesn’t work.” James nodded. “That’s the soda fountain. That’s where you get soda from. That’s the window. That’s where the assholes come and you give them their food. That’s the sink. Wash shit in there. And that’s the skull of regret.” What.

James stared at this thing. It was just a skull. Two empty eye sockets above an empty, uh, nose socket? Teeth, crooked and some missing, formed the shit-eating grin that only a skull could pull off. Huh. It had more hair than Brad did. “And here’s the straws. Alllll the straws.” James was still staring when Brad came into his view with two fucking hands full of straws. James opened his mouth to ask “What the fuck kind of fucking McDonald’s fucking has a fucking skull over the fucking sink fuck?” but all that dribbled out was “Uh”.