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By Root 1260 0

getting extorted by our snack food distributors, Mr. Yummykakes and Mr. Tortilla Chip, who’ve been trying to strong-arm us into buying more merchandise than we need and “forgetting,” if we don’t honor their demands, to make scheduled deliveries, or claiming we haven’t met their quotas (which are much lower than what they actually want us to purchase). As a result, some of our shelves have gone empty, and customers are asking where their favorite foods are. It’s a game of chicken, and much to the consternation of the snack food thugs, who probably thought they could walk all over this roly-poly Asian grandmother manning the day shift, Kay hasn’t blinked. In fact, she’s banned some of them from the store. My mother-in-law knows all the distributors’ tricks, whether it’s dumping eight dollies of the new and soon-to-be-discontinued no-calorie beer next to the cash register and driving away before we can open the boxes, or sticking us with a freezer full of ice cream that got too warm in the back of the truck. (Refrozen ice cream has the texture of snow dislodged from the underside of a delivery vehicle.) Besides being fierce, she’s paranoid and inexhaustible, a scammer’s worst nemesis.

But these aren’t qualities that can easily be switched off, and as Kay herself will eventually admit, the stress of the last few weeks has brought out a kind of demonic single-mindedness in her. She’s gone into crisis mode, which means that come hell or high water, she’s going to get us through this turmoil. As a result, there’ve been times when she’s been almost as fierce with us as she has been with Mr. Yummykakes and Mr. Tortilla Chip. Using all the weapons in her arsenal (the guilt trip, the nag, the tantrum), she’s been pressing us to stay focused on survival—making it to the next day, then the next pay cycle—without committing unforced errors like getting fancy with the renovations. No one else in the family has this kind of strength or takes on the same amount of responsibility. Other than Edward, who’s not involved in the store every day, Kay’s the only one who knows what it takes to get through a crisis. But as I keep telling myself, bullying is bullying, whether it’s for a good cause or not.

So after watching Kay browbeat everyone some more, I order the whole family, plus Ling and Dwayne, out of the store. Since no one else will stand up to tyranny, I will is something like the thought going through my head.

“Can you stay here for a second?” I say to Kay, putting my hand on her arm as she’s about to leave the store too.

“Me? Why?” She looks surprised.

Instead of answering I close the front door, which, like the rest of us this morning, has come slightly unhinged and immediately wedges tight against the frame.

Now’s my chance. I have prepared a speech, something direct but not disrespectful, firm but not inappropriate. If only the sawdust wasn’t so thick and my eyes weren’t watery and bulging, and my face wasn’t red with exertion and I didn’t look like a man who just lost his wits!

“We need to talk—” I start to say, but before I can finish the sentence Kay screams as if she’s in a horror movie and runs for the bathroom. Now, my mother-in-law has the loudest voice I’ve ever heard. She used to be a wedding singer, and in Korea they train singers to project their voices by making them practice next to waterfalls. Kay’s shriek isn’t a whole lot less piercing than Uncle Jinsuk’s table saw, but luckily her voice is set to stun, not kill, and I may only be temporarily deafened.

The people outside start pounding on the door, though.

“Hey, what’s going on in there? Is everyone okay? Open up!” Their alarm is magnified by finding that the door won’t budge.

Oh, great. This looks wonderful. I knock on the door of the bathroom, but Kay won’t come out. She’s locked herself in and is still screaming for help.

“I just want to talk!” I shout at her in a voice that sounds remarkably like Quasimodo’s. What happened to my mother-in-law the bully? Now she’s acting all ladylike and scared, leaving me to look like the bad guy. What kind of person,