‘The Horrors of Kwiksave’ is a candid recollection of my memories working at Kwiksave (the now-defunct discount supermarket chain) as a 'Stock Lad'.
I wasted over FOUR years of my life in this maggot-infested hellhole and still occasionally wake up drenched in sweat after enduring a nightmare in which I am working there still.
Some of the names have been slightly changed simply to save my arse in case anyone takes offence at some of the details regarding my facts or opinions.
Many of the people mentioned are now dead as this happened so long ago, but their siblings are not.
This is the 'HIVE Special Edition' of a multi-part autobiographical story (with a little over-embellishment on some of the details) I posted on STEEM over 3 years ago.
It contains a LOT more detail and content than the original and will fill in many gaps that were missed the first time around.
Chapter One: A Prelude to the Best Job in the Land
Chapter Two: The Job Centre
Chapter Three: The Interview
Chapter Four: Christmas is Coming
Chapter Five: The Changing of the Blades
Chapter Six: The Staff
Chapter Seven: The Auxiliary Staff and The Load
Chapter Eight: The Sugar Maniac
Chapter Nine: The Accusation and "Big Lad"
Chapter Ten: Naggy
Chapter Eleven: Shit & Noise
Chapter Twelve: The Death of Mort
Chapter Thirteen: The Time of Many Managers
Chapter Fourteen: The Calm before the Storm
Chapter Fifteen: David Dire
Chapter Sixteen: Bad Totty
Chapter Seventeen: Tracy, The Wild One
Chapter Eighteen: 'Buff-It-up'
Chapter Nineteen: The Demise of Ian Banks
Chapter Twenty: The Date (Part One)
Chapter Twenty One: The Date (Part Two)
'WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE BELOW'
So I had a date, we were to go to the ‘pictures’, that’s the Cinema in today’s world.
Why I chose 'there' I can't tell you. I did visit the pub in those years but a rowdy drinking establishment did not strike me as a great first date venue.
Eating out was not done much in those times, and besides, I was on the terrible wages that Kwiksave bestowed up on me, around £45 a week.
That morning passed slowly for me. All this had happened around 10 am, and neither of us was due to leave until 1 pm and what's more, a load was due.
...'looking at this image gives me fucking nightmares, seconded only to 'The Sugar Maniac'...
A 'load' was an articulated truck filled to the brim with pallets of food. It needed to be unloaded and stacked in the back shop ready for the next day.
Welder, me, and the truck driver did the work while Dire supervised from the sidelines; that is he usually ate his butties and did little else other than staring at us with those bulbous eyes of his as though we were the next course on his menu.
On that particular day, the truck arrived late which meant we finished late. There was no downing of tools unless you wanted the sack and I was irritated, to say the least.
Had I blown my chance with Barbara?
I raced out of the back shop onto the shop floor at around 1.15 pm thinking her already gone.
...'not Barbara, in-fact I have no photographs of her at all, and she was not naked in the Kwiksave foyer'...
Source
…there she was, waiting with that small smile I was about to fall in love with. There was no sign of impatience and no frowning or tapping of the feet.
Screeching to a stop I immediately went tingly all over, approached her with tentative steps, and enquired where she lived in a gently probing voice.
I had an idea it was close to where I lived, as I had seen her on my bus several times but had kept my distance until now.
Sure enough, one bus stop away AND in walking distance was her parents' house. We made plans to meet at 6 pm outside the Kawasaki motorcycle store, approximately 200 yards from her house, and then duly separated.
I don’t know how I got home that day as we technically should have been on the same bus, but until things were a little more ‘official’ it didn’t seem right to catch the same one.
Spending more time in that dratted supermarket was out of the question, so I have to surmise that I went to the pub with Welder bursting to inform him of later happenings.
What I wore was not important. I was not out to impress, it was she who had made the approach.
In the middle of 1983, the UK was firmly entrenched in the New Romantics age. I loved the music and yet looked like a Bay City Roller fan with long hair covering my lugs and possibly flares attached to my arse, minus that hideous tartan.
Walking the three-quarters of a mile to the Kawasaki store I remember that I was not late for my rendezvous and neither was she.
The bus trip was unmemorable but when we arrived at the cinema, we had not booked anything.
There was also a wait of at least an hour before the movie we chose started. So we walked, and walked and walked around the town to kill time.
Source
The movie was a distraction, and I didn’t care about what we were about to see. My focus was somewhere else and that was on Barbara. I would make her my girl.
She was tall, around 5'8, had shortish very dark brown hair that was in-style for those times, not a stunner, but certainly far from ugly, and was plastered in make-up.
After some time she grabbed my hand and I was more than happy to take it. I had just gained some of those butterflies in my stomach and life was wonderful.
I do remember the movie as ‘Unhinged’. It would become a member of the ‘video nasties’ group that was announced later in the 1980’s.
It was a cheap rate slasher movie with lots of blood, gore, and swearing. I can’t remember a thing about it, as it was simply background noise to our incessant chattering,
I was a late starter as geeks often are. Besides a little snogging with a couple of loose tarts at the ‘The Queens’ this was a first for me. The weekend after I was always disappointed when they were hitched with someone else and I was suddenly invisible.
Time went ever so quickly and I wondered why this never happened when donning the halls of Kwiksave.
Then we were outside her parents' house I knew it was time for the kiss. There had been none of that during the screams, and violence we had duly ignored while 'watching' Unhinged.
True to form and using my full repertoire of learned romantic experiences I jammed my tongue down her throat routine and…, what was this?
It felt a little awkward. Surely at the age of 16 years, she was well versed in the art of tongue jamming?
She reciprocated with desire to my non-too gentle approach but something had felt wrong.
Source
...'that first kiss was none too good. Barbara was an extremely quick learner and kiss number #2 was infinitely better'...
Was it a lack of experience? After the Kwiksave Christmas kisses and those occasional loose women, I was after all.. VERY experienced.
The first kiss had been just that, an awkward moment, but subsequent kisses had somehow worked, and there was none of that ‘sour-breath syndrome’.
The summer of 1983 is a blur. It passed quickly and for a while I was pulled off my Sinclair Spectrum into a world of walking hand-in-hand, sitting by river-sides, and getting to know the current girl of my dreams.
@slobberchops was in love...
Epilogue: The Sour-Breath Experience
I have deep-throated two girls in my life that had the ‘sour-breath syndrome’. You detect it right away once your tongue is down their throat and you wiggle your tongue around a little.
It’s a horrible, sour taste that sits in your head and never leaves. Subsequent dates with said girl probably won’t happen.
One was named Allison, a local girl with sprightly red hair who was very good-looking and didn't fancy me too much.
How I managed the snog, I can't remember but it happened just once.
The other was a 17-year-old American chick who I dated just once in Arizona. I was much older at the time and it should never have happened.
She took a fancy to me, but that’s where it finished.
I detected the same sour taste in both their mouths. You never can tell by looking at them without 'a taste'. I hope you can relate.
To be continued...
Cover Picture is a combination of free sources from here and here, combined and edited with Luminar 4. Any unsourced images are my own.
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