Congratulations on Surviving the Explosion!

You’ve managed a Macy’s for nearly three years at this point. You know every inch of roadway between its welcoming doors and the basement entrance to your mom’s house. You know that if you don’t assign the proper array of young women to the perfume section disaster will likely strike and an elderly Jewish woman will be blinded. You know just what to expect in your painfully monotonous daily life.

Except on this day.

It comes once a year like clockwork, but it never seems to make a difference. Sometimes things will barely change at all and sometimes hell will visit itself upon your shop, blood running across the floors deep enough to stain the hems of some of the more traditional dresses in the Women’s section.

You’ve learned from the mistakes of your predecessors. Craig, the manager before you, wouldn’t prepare at all. And Jack, the previous manager, would hire Chechnyan mercenaries to maintain “order” in the store. The day of the Macy’s Half Off Sale has been a red-letter day in each of their histories, and this is your last chance to get it right.

You’ll take a middling approach after seeing both Craig and Jack fail under the pressure of their own extremes. Early in the morning you’ll deploy private military contractors in key departments throughout the store, each armed with a cattle prod and a can of pepper spray. You’ll take the same approach to encouraging moderation and creativity that the Navy takes with the Marines, limiting their resources severely in order to force them to reconsider their approach to both their task and their survival.

You’ll also have a back up.

Things will all be in place, your department managers equipped with two way radios and “panic buttons.” You’ll nod to Jesus, your ethnic assistant manager, and he’ll nod in response before unlocking the front door. Nothing will wait outside but the cool dawn air.

At first all will be silent. The recession, it seems, will have spared you your horrible fate. But then a slow drumming will rise in volume, growing into a cacaphony as if a herd of bison were charging your shop. You’ll know this sound all too well after nearly a decade of employment at Macy’s. It will be the sound of potential disaster.

After a moment stretching into eternity the sound will give way to the creaking of the main doors as a press of humanity forces itself into your store, overweight middle aged women blindly stomping and snapping at one another as they press through the doors. You’ll wonder for a moment why none of them have thrown anything through the front window to make a new entrance before you realize: it’s instinct that drives them, not reason. Their minds are too clouded by bargains to conceive of such advanced problem solving techniques as shattering glass with a nearby trash can.

“First wave,” you’ll say into your walkey-talkie in your gruffest Batman impression.

No response will come from the PMCs on the first floor, but you’ll see them surge forward to meet your customers, jabbing forward with their prods and spraying their mace wide. At first the tide of humanity will slow around them, but after a few seconds their progress will stem and then turn. A thirty-seven year old man will be dragged to the ground and henpecked with high heeled shoes. A fifty-two year old will be blinded by a swinging purse before being knocked to the ground and having his skull crushed under a two-hundred and eighty pound woman’s pump. All around men, men you hired to keep yourself safe, will be dying.

You’ll shake your head at their plight before turning and nodding to Jesus. Jesus will nod again in response before speaking into his walkey-talkie.

“Back please,” he’ll lisp before fiddling with the nobs of his two-way until it clicks off awkwardly. You’ll bite your lip and watch as men rush backwards towards you in futility, screaming as they fall under a wave of rictus faced women. Not a single man will have reached the escalators when you blow the charges and send a cascade of explosions rippling up the devices.

Shrapnel will fly in every direction, giving the tide of humanity a momentary pause and injuring several of your men. Jesus will take a piece of metal in his throat and go down, gurgling and clutching himself as his life leaks out.

But you’ll stand there, proudly looking out over the smoking wreckage of your store as the baffled mass of humanity stumbles about below. You’ll have survived the first hurdle. As you direct your men to the stairwells, where they’ll be able to better control the flow of middle-aged women, you’ll give yourself a little mental pat on the back.

You’ve saved at least half the store, and that’s better than most managers can do. Your job should be secure for at least another three months, until your next performance assessment.

Congratulations on Surviving the Explosion!