“Mom, bring me more bagel bites” Ned Dunkle yells upstairs while playing Fallout 4 on his playstation 4.  Eating and playing video games are two of Ned’s favorite things.  Ned is severely overweight at the weight of 285 while only measuring in at about 5’11”.  He is a college dropout who works at walmart three times a week in Decatur, Indiana, specializing in customer service. 
At the tender age of 25, Ned doesn't know how to move forward with his life; his mom is afraid that he will live in her basement into his fifties.  The standard day for Ned when he doesn't work includes: Waking up at around 2 p.m., eating some frozen Eggo waffles, then going downstairs to binge play video games again until about 4pm when he goes to eat dinner upstairs.  Most of the time he falls asleep around 2 a.m. unless he he is really worn out from a long day at work when he goes to bed before midnight.  The cycle of gaming and eating has been going on for about 6 years now since Ned had to drop out of his local community college because of bad grades. Ned decided after that that school was not for him. Ned then decided to attempt to make money off of video game tournaments, but was unsuccessful in this endeavor because he was not good enough to win them.
Although he rarely leaves his house, if it is nice outside, Ned might crack the blinds. The natural sunlight shines upon his long, greasy, black hair as he continues the Fallout 4 campaign.  He sits upon a couch that looks as if it is straight out of the late 80’s with a light yellow floral pattern on a dull red background.  There is a tear in a top cushion of the couch exposing the underlying white pillow stained with a mix of sweat and spoiled milk. A knitted blanket made by Ned’s grandmother lays effortlessly at the end of the L-shaped couch covering just his feet. Aside from the couch and the small 20” television there is very little else in the basement aside from a small bookshelf and some boxed up pictures.  Only about forty percent of the floor is covered in gray carpet while the edges are exposed with a dark blue tile. 
Ned works at Walmart purely to support his video game addiction.  Video games are not cheap and new ones are coming out rapidly.  Making $9.00 an hour and working twenty hours a week is sufficient to maintain his current video game budget. After all, Ned doesn’t have to pay any bills while living at his parent’s house
Ned’s official title at Walmart is “Assistant to the Regional Manager Specializing in Local Customer Service.”  But, all things are looking up and he is hoping he will get promoted to “Assistant Regional Manager Specializing in Customer Service.”  When he does work, on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays his mandatory day to day operations are very bismal.  Most of the time he just walks around re-organizing shelves and asking people if they are finding everything okay.  Rarely, if ever, does a problem arise where he needs to seriously attend to it. But, he has truly surprised himself and his mother with being a “specialist” in customer service as he suffers from low self esteem along with a mild case of aspergers.  He never pictured himself being a customer service representative a year ago.  His Mom suspected he had the syndrome from a young age as he didn’t get along with any of his play pals but he wasn’t officially diagnosed until his early teenage years.
Ned has never had any sort of romantic relationship or any real friends for that matter.  Although he has never been good with people, his hardest social encounter is yet to come.
Black Friday, Walmart's biggest day of the year; where retail stores all over the country have massive sales to lure in customers shopping for holiday gifts.  The general manager of Ned’s walmart store has scheduled everyone to work, including Ned.  He wakes up at three o’clock in the morning for his five am shift.   It starts off as just another day, he gets up, brushes his teeth, takes a shower and thinks of how awful his life is.
“Bye, mom” Ned exclaims to his mother upstairs watching the post-thanksgiving morning news.
“Bye sweetie, have a good day at work, try your hardest” his mother replies.
He takes a toaster pastry for the road and gets into his multicolored 1994 dodge neon which is slowly rusting away at the bottom.  It smells as if there has been a barbecue pizza in it for two weeks but he's just accustomed to it.  Although it is still dark outside, fog sits ominously and consumes the road and everything in it.
As he approaches the walmart store, he sees the long line of people and says to himself:
“Here we f***ing go” in a soft, melancholy voice.
While sauntering unenthusiastic towards the building, a middle aged customer with his kids shouts at Ned: “Open the doors already fatty”
Ned goes zero to one hundred real quick and becomes livid.
“Don’t mess with me”
Ned’s manager sees the situation from inside and calls to Ned:
“Ned get in here” and grabs his royal blue walmart polo by the collar and pulls him inside.
“What the hell are you doing out there ned? You can’t start fights with the customer, they are always right, remember?”  The manager states rhetorically.
“Get your head out of your hind son”
“Yes boss” he mumbles back. That was the only thing Ned could get out as he feels his throat tightening up and the sudden urge of tears coming over him. The manager stood up on one of the checkout line conveyor belts and gave a brief pep talk about what the black Friday stations were and what to do if and when a serious conflict arises.  Ned toned out the manager as he was too busy wallowing in self pity to pay attention to what was going on around him.
As the clock struck five the doors opened and the people poured in.  It was absolute chaos, Ned didn’t know where to go or what to say.  Everywhere Ned looked there were hoards of people fighting and slashing over items.  He proceeded to linger around and act like he was doing something while he let his co-workers take the lead on the fights chaos.  The smell of sweat and bodily fluids overcame the store.  As Ned turned down the children’s toy aisle he noticed two middle aged, severely overweight women fighting over the last of the newest Barbie toy.  It is at this point that Ned realized that he should have paid attention to his boss’s special Black Friday instructions.  With adrenaline coursing through his veins, he knew he had to diffuse the situation.
“Ma’am” Ned said hesitantly, “Ma’am please cut that out.”
“Shut your mouth fatty” one of the women replied.
They continue to grapple with the barbie doll until Ned finally decided to take a stand and break up the fight.  Ned didn’t have a courageous bone in his body but for one time in his life, just one time he wanted to be bold.  He wanted to do something useful for one.  Ned stepped in and ripped the pink cased, made in china, piece of plastic from both of them and loudly exclaimed: 
“You know what? Neither of you get the barbie” as he storms off to the storage room to prevent any further commotion. Next thing you know, the women are involved in a rage filled, bidding war.  Although counterintuitive to their initial goal of buying a cheap toy, their primitive instincts kick in as they try to bribe Ned.
“I’ll give you $50 for it right now”
“I can out do that, I’ll give you $65” the other lady responded
“Listen here chumps, neither of you are getting it.  Good day.” Ned said definitively.
Standing from a distance, Ned’s manager observed the whole situation unfold, nodded, and said to himself: “I thought I’d never see the day.”  Once black friday was over and everything had calmed down to its normal, non-busy state, Ned finally got acknowledged for his bravery.  His manager called him into his 10’ x 10’ office and spoke the words that Ned has been waiting a long time to hear: “I saw what you did last friday, I’m proud of you Neddy boy.  I consulted my superiors and we have decided to give you a promotion.”
“Thank you so much! It means a lot” Ned answered
“Congratulations Ned, you have been promoted to: Assistant Regional Manager Specializing in Customer Service”