WHO IS SHE? Is she Penny? (pretty sure it's not penny). Is she's Morris girlfriend? Linus' estranged daughter? A JojaMart Service Android? Why is she the only person in town you can't talk too? Who is mystery lady? (And who will be the first person to tell me the answer which will be so blindingly obvious I'll feel really stupid?)
Ah, yes. Faceless employee #378. You see, its against company policy to socialize when you're on the clock and since she lives out of town she never has a chance to get to know anyone. Just comes to work every day, puts in the hours, then drives back home wondering what she is doing with her life. You do her a great service by failing to support Joja Mart's corporate empire. Without that cashier job, she is finally free to travel outside the country and pursue her love of collecting foreign wines from all over the world. She will eventually go on to open her own wine import shop and bring culture to her home city, using the profits from her business to run anti-Joja Mart campaigns in an effort to run them out of the country for good.
Or...maybe...she's the WITCH! THIS IS HER DAY JOB! By night, she moonlights putting curses on people everywhere!
Is that something you can moonlight? If it's just your regular night-time job, surely you're just... working.
Camp joja mart until close time, then when they close... stay at the door... I mean, she has to leave at one point, right?
She is a metaphor for the common retail employee. No name, oh she was once some one. She once had a name, a life, a soul. The corporation she works for slowly but surely tore from her the individuality that made her shine, the unruly selfish customers finished the job by destroying her will. With no point of reference to go back to, and no will to try, she is now just another drone. She may also serve as a reminder of who your character may have become had he not opened that letter, had he not taken advantage of that opportunity.
There should be an event like that, @Zaelox. you come inside JojaMart and then the cashier somehow turned...into you! The lifeless, joyless eyes, the stiff body, the soulless expression... You're surprised but the second after it's the cashier again, with the same dead expression. Apparently is just a delusion of yours-- or perhaps, some astral reminder for you to keep going....
I always just figured she is an out-of-towner that drives in to work every day. Of course, that raises the other, more vexing question of how she gets here, since none of the roads in the Valley connect to the outside world.
Commuter Mine Cart Service, obviously. (The very first time I saw Cashier Girl, I honest-to-God thought it was Leah. So naturally I tried to sweet-talk her, only to be shot down by the infernal cash register.)
I just assume that she bikes to work and just leans said bike against the back of the building, next to all those rocks and logs that you also can't see and have to find by feel and then spam your axe/pick until you get lucky and break them. Also, I like how you can't interact with her outside of the "buy somthin', will ya?" shop menu. I mean, have you seen the slouched posture and dead-eyed, eyes-half-closed stare? Seem a little familiar? Remember that she's probably some poor girl, still in high school, who's getting paid a pittance above the minimum wage to stand there doing the same dull, repetitive job, uttering the same rote, company-mandated pleasantries, for 4 to 8 hours at a crack. Yeah, I was fortunate that I never had to resort to being a cashier at a big-box grocery store, but I always feel sorry for whoever's behind the conveyor belt when I'm done with my shopping.
"Who am I" The badge on my work uniform reads 'Cashier Associate #4569-SDV'. At some point I had another name, I think it started with an S. But I might just be thinking too much about how my store ID ends. All I can be sure of anymore is my ID number. It's what Corporate and Mr. Morris always call me by now. I'm young, pretty, full of youth, but yet I'm stuck here behind this register all day, from the early morning until the sun has gone down. An hour of doing inventory before the doors open, and an hour doing the same after the doors close. Even when the lights shut off I can't even leave the building; I just go crawl into the tiny room that Joja provides for me at the rear of the store while Mr. Morris climbs the nearby stairs to his loft apartment. I don't even dream anymore when I finally collapse from exhaustion, there's just a empty darkness from the moment my eyes shut to the moment the glaring lights switch on hours later. I get up, a take a quick shower and try to keep my cot from getting soaked from stray water spray before getting dressed in my uniform. Then I walk out to greet the florescent day. The customers that come in, the residents of the nice little town I've only seen when I first arrived here on the train and the treeline I can see out the main doors, they're nice to me at least. They don't really say much but try to make small talk as I ring up their purchases and bag them, something I've done so many times that I could do it in my sleep. The only people that I've spoken with to any great length since getting here are Mr. Morris and Shane. Mr. Morris acts like he cares but he doesn't. My early attempts at expressing concern over my lodgings was met with a concerned "Well, I don't know how headquarters will feel about that...I mean, you do get to stay here for so much less than a normal apartment or house would cost, plus the discounted meals...it'd be a shame to throw such a opportunity away, wouldn't it? Especially since there are so few other places of employment here in town..." I learned to only speak to Mr. Morris when it is absolutely necessary. Shane, on the other hand, is outright mean. He comes in, stocks the shelves all day, and then leaves. There's more employee bunks in the backroom but their doors are all locked. I've heard Mr. Morris try to get Shane to 'take advantage of a great opportunity' but Shane just leaves with a gruff "No thanks". From what little I've been able to gather during the few times we've spoken is that he lives somewhere past the town on a farm, with cows and chickens and pigs. He says it smells horrible and he can't wait to get enough cash to leave this whole valley behind. I envy him and his ability to leave. Maybe one day I'll get to leave. But sometimes Shane says something, either to me or Mr. Morris, about something terrible that happens out in the world. Infidelity, robbery, old men that have to live out of garbage cans because they refuse to take Joja's gracious offers of employment. Sometimes I even hear the word war being tossed around, and all the suffering that comes with it. Maybe being Cashier Associate #4569-SDV isn't so bad. I have a home, hot meals, Joja provided clothes and a job in a quiet little town that seems so removed from the troubles of the outside world. Maybe one day I'll get to leave. But do I really want to?
Who's to say she doesn't live to the east, beyond the quarry or somesuch? Although to be fair the only paved road out of the town does lead through the desert. Of course, we're debating logic in a game with a Hotel California bus system - you can ride one into the valley any time you like, but you can never leave. At least, not until 18 months from now when the protagonist gets around to forcing the forest sprites to fix the bus with their Car Mechanic magic (?)
I read about this guy who walked like 80 miles roundtrip to work, took him like 4-5 hours each way. Maybe she just lives in the JojaMart dairy freezer and will one day die in there, only to be transferred to the meat locker and sold as quality Joja Corp. ground mystery meat.
