Here is my slaved over opening to the rewritten story. Let me know if you'd like to read the whole thing (1000 words). And feel free to post any thoughts you may have.

McZombie
By J B Skaggs

"We're sorry, but all our manager positions are filled," the manager said. She was a dark haired middle aged woman. Her nametag read: "manager."

"Look, I really need work. I’m manager material, but I can do anything," Melissa said as she chewed her gum quite loudly. I can't believe I'm begging for a McJob. Geez. Can’t these people tell I am the next Britney Spears? Look at me! I’m so hot. That jealous cow fired me at Burger Prince because she couldn’t handle that I was going to be famous.

"Honey, you don't want to work here," The manager said.

Another employee turned slowly in circles, his mouth drooping open and his eyes staring unblinking.

"Marshall! Go take out the trash," the manager yelled.

He quit shuffling, moaned softly, and shuffled towards the trash can.

Melissa watched the employees trudge along, numb, and stupid. Some were standing with mouths agape, watching the meat patties sizzle. What a bunch of feebs! Like, I can do so much better. The Cosmo-Rocker’s personality quiz said I was so bound for stardom.

The thing is, you have a deep penetration, and in a deep penetration you can just put character thoughts in there in normal print, just there. I'm sure you've read Card's books. He does that sort of thing all the time: direct character thoughts with no italics or quotes or anything else but you know what they are. Italics are difficult to read. Not substantially; not to the point that most people think in conscioussly, but they read those parts more slowly and have to pay more attention. That's the point of italics, actualy, to get someone to stop and think about the words in question. They are often misused in textbooks that seem to think italics are interchangeable with boldface. Boldface draws attention but italics, especially in repition, make the eyes want to skip over that part. This is why in my opinion they should only be used for ocassional emphasis, when you want someone to slow down and have to think about the word or words in question.