I Ain't Bitter

An Original Monologue by Amy Alls

Lights up on Janine who speaks in a heavy southern accent.

I work with Sadie down at the gift shop aside the Cracker Barrell. Truth be told, I can't stand the woman. She gits on my last nerve with her constant chatterin about anything and everything anyone could never want nor need to hear. I think some of that bleach she been colorin her hair with done sunk into her brain and left an awful hole where smarts oughtta be. See, Sadie figgers she ought to be extra special sweet soundin to everyone even if what she's sayin ain't nothing but bitchin and moanin. Everyone gets that way around Christmas. No matter what they's sayin, they always got to use extra words to break it down gently like. Sadie is like that 24/7/365.

Aside from her messin up the night deposit by tellin customers they get discounts they don't get and overall stickin her nose in everybody's cotton and lace, she up and tells me the other day that I'm just a bitter ol' bitch. Well, I got quiet and just turned my head tryin desperate-like to keep from rippin all that bleached blonde hay out o her head. Then, I composed m'self and said, "Sadie, you don't know a damn thing about me and that's the way I'd like to keep it. But, jest so you know, I ain't no kind of bitter bout nothin."

Sadie didn't say much back. She just sort o rolled over her eyes and turned back to stockin the candy sticks. The next 2 hours was like a year almost, til her husband came to pick her up to take her home.

He came early, I noticed, and I was sure she was going to try to leave for it was the end of her shift, but she kept stockin while I was totalin and ringin. A customer went to her to ask fer some help and her husband stepped aside. She stood up, just as sweet as you please, and kept a smile on her face the whole time she was talkin to the customer. I don't know what she was sayin, it looked kind a like the customer was givin her a hard time, but that wasn't what I was lookin at, really. Mostly, I was just lookin at the way her husband was lookin at her. He was just starin there, like some dumbfounded young teenager looking at something he wasn't allowed to touch. All of the love in the world was right there in that man's eyes and it was all for stupid, candy-coated bleach blonded, bitchy Sadie McHenry.

I felt this heavy feelin right in the pit of my stomach and I lost count o what I was doin. I rung up 2 candy sticks at a discount rate without there bein a discount rate to ring up. Sadie went home with her husband after her shift was over and, as I jerked my way into the dented door of my old, wood-panel colored station wagon, I sat behind the steering wheel and thought about Sadie and the whole day and her husband and then I thought about the t.v. dinner I had left in the frigidaire...I composed myself. I ain't bitter. Sure, I ain't. Not me.

Lights Down