The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Ten

This 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 horrible dump, and still wake up with nightmare's occasionally thinking I'm still there.

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 will be a multi-part article as there is simply too much to tell in one sitting. I hope you find it as entertaining as I found recalling it from my brain.

Other articles in the series:
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part One
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Two
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Three
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Four
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Five
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Six
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Seven
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Eight
The Kwiksave Chronicles of Slobberchops - Part Nine

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‘Some kids are best left to fend for themselves, and others were born to stack shelves’ – Steven Wilson

May 1983 – The Date

I can’t remember what I wore, I was as fashion conscious as ‘Rick’ from The Young Ones at this particular time of my life, and still am really. I can remember that I was not late for my rendezvous outside the motorcycle shop 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 the time.

To be honest I couldn’t have cared less about the movie, I was more interested in this lovely girl and just talking to her. She grabbed my hand at some point along the way, and I was more than happy to take it. I had just gained some of those butterflies in my stomach.

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. I can’t remember a thing about it, as it was simply background noise to our incessant chattering. If there were others in the cinema, they probably would have been more than a little irritated.

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There was to be no romantic ‘Officer and a Gentleman’ movie date for us, it was straight to the horror and we didn’t care one little bit.

To say we hit if off would be an understatement. The show was over, we caught the bus together and I was quite close to her house but not too close when it was time to part. So then there was the kiss.

As usual it was the tongue jammed down the throat routine for me, no point in changing the habit of a lifetime? She reciprocated well to my non-too gentle approach but it felt a little awkward. Was this her first kiss?

Me…, well I was the experienced kisser!

The summer of 1983 was bliss, and yet a blur. This is 35 years ago, and only patches of it remain in my head. Long walks, sitting by the reservoir, and generally being out of the house with my new love interest changed me from the computer geek I was to some haze stricken love zombie, at least for a while.

The first kiss had been just that, an awkward moment, but ever since then it felt right, it felt good and @slobberchops has fallen head over heels in love.

However life at Kwiksave was to become insufferable. From FOUR stock lads we were now TWO again. Dire had developed an unwarranted dislike for me, and I still have no clue why.

He knew I had a strong interest in the Home Computer frenzy that had started and was devoting an unhealthy amount of time to this hobby, and yet bought his son an Amstrad CPC464 for his birthday. As well as being a ‘shit platform’ in my humble opinion at the time, he would now have to buy all the software for it.

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If he had used his brain just a little and asked my advice, I would have advised him to buy an Atari 800 and provided him with a plethora of software for free as at the time I was Mr ‘YoHoHo and a Bottle of Rum’, bigtime software pirate.

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Instead he now favoured Welder. I can’t say anything personally bad about my long term colleague, besides not exactly being the brightest spark in town. Now Welder was waltzing about looking important with pad in hand doing the inventory, escorting Dire to the post office with the chained brief case full of money and seen laughing and joking with this corpulent hog of a manager.

I felt a little betrayed as I was technically the senior stock lad, if there was any such thing as that!

Of course it went in Welder’s favour that he could drink. Dire was one of these middle aged blokes who would go straight to the pub after work and drink EIGHT pints of Mild every night. I couldn’t drink even then and certainly didn’t want to spend my time with this two-faced, bow-legged wanker in the pub. I was no sycophant even if it meant lost favour.

I recall an incident at the 1983 Christmas do. Dire was after some Christmas kisses from the checkout operators, much like I had desired a couple of years previously.

The difference was that I was around 18 years old and single while Dire was around 45 years old and married with a huge beer belly. He motioned Barbara over, grabbed hold of her and used my tongue jamming technique on her.

Source - Dire's Belly really was this large

I flushed red and was repulsed by this unexpected behaviour but didn’t say anything. Barbara took it like a soldier before hastily backing off after he was done with her. Funny how these things stick in your mind?

Nothing was said or done as neither of us wanted to lose our jobs, such was the political arena of a discount supermarket in 1983.

To be continued...

All stock photographs I have used are filtered as ‘Labelled for reuse’ or 'Labelled for noncommercial reuse' and the sources have been cited.