Casino Shuffle.

I get so tired of smiling at people sometimes. And not just the customers...coworkers too. Hundreds of people work here. Do you know how many of them force acquaintances with the handful of young, pretty girls and then completely annoy them? Lots. I repeat the tired phrase, "Good, how are you?" so many times a day that I accidentally use it with people I actually find interesting - people I want to be real with.

The floral arrangements in the lobby cause it to smell like a funeral parlor. And it may as well be. People come here to swim through the thick cigarette fog, dragging their oxygen tanks, dragging their feet, dragging their empty wallets behind them. Shuffling. This place is a nursing home activity. A cake walk of death.

I'm terrified that working here in all this smoke will wrinkle my face up, dry it out, carve my smile into something grotesque and insincere. My blue veins will pop and spider across my legs. I will become bitter and snap at the still-youthful girls. I will become the sad, old women I hate.