‘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)
Chapter Twenty Two: Dire's Lunge
Chapter Twenty Three: 'Eggy-Poos'
Chapter Twenty-Four: Adele, the Hot Minx
'WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE BELOW'
“Fuck me, it’s hot”, I mentioned to ‘Doug the Thug’ who was ‘racking down’ the beans aisle on the opposite side from me.
Douglas Dire was around the same age as me and David Dire’s eldest son. Given the dwindling relationship with my obese, corpulent, twat of a boss you might think he would hold me in complete disdain for my crimes of abstaining from blatent obsequiousness.
But Doug wasn't like that, in fact, I felt he was the rebel and black sheep of the Dire family, despite his participation in 'working for free' and even wearing a dreaded Kwiksave pungent overall in the colours of shit-brown.
...'you do me too much credit AI, I was never this good looking and the lips were a little thicker'...
I never did ask him why he subjected himself to this, 'self-imposed torture'. Could it be that his cunt of a father was blackmailing Doug for crimes he had performed in an earlier part of his life?
The late Martin did tell me tales of the younger Doug's thievery within the Oldham area, in the form of petrol siphoning and stealing goods from a slipper factory. The Oldham Kwiksave lads even wrote a song for the hapless Doug which I was privy to:
'I’m Doug the Thug, I’m a Thug called Doug,
I like to siphon petrol tanks,
I’m a thug, I’m a thug, I’m a thug'
Verse two was the same, the middle line substituted with:
‘I also like to steal hot slippers’
There was even a 'Doug the Thug' dance that Martin taught me by example. It was all a little silly and I figured Doug had paid for his crimes, berated by the Oldham lads and so I decided to let it go.
The ‘Doug the Thug’ song was never going to hit the UK music charts and the one time Martin had performed the song ‘live’ in the back-shop complete with an animated jig, Doug had stormed out and sulked for the best part of a week.
Due to the anarchic history of British towns, each one had its half-day closing day meaning at one o'clock the supermarket was forced to shut down leaving the staff with the best part of an afternoon free.
Source
...'forced to close on Tuesday's. It should have been forced to close permanently, give the mental scars it inflicted on me'...
In Rawtenstall, this happened to be a Tuesday, though I am sure the Kwiksave hierarchy took a dim view of this. They would stay open 24/7 given the opportunity and force the likes of me to work 24-hour shifts with no breaks and no sleep.
It was on these afternoons that I would subject Doug to tennis matches, taking delight in kicking his arse 6-0, 6-0 frequently. I was a lousy player but Doug was as dire as his surname and could barely hit a tennis ball.
Adele, the Hot Minx
On other occasions, I would accompany Barbara to 'Ames Records', a locally based chain that sold the most expensive music in Lancashire, and that went bust decades ago.
They appeared to flaunt the 'half-day' rule somehow and my girlfriend's best mate happened to work there.
...'AI is too perfect. Adele was not this stunning but she had me gawping and slathering from the jowls, hopefully not too directly'...
Adele was a short, skinny blonde attractive girl who often wore those half-cut halter tops that attracted the eye. I couldn’t help but leer on the odd occasions we entered Ames, with Adele always sending me disapproving, murderous looks.
Could it be that I wasn't very discreet and drooled a little saliva while ogling her bare naval area?
I wasn't good enough for 'her' Barbara; that much emanated through her pupils as she ritually looked me up and down, staring at the 70's flared jeans, my unkempt long ginger hair, and oversized lips.
I was conscious of my ‘Jagger Lips’ that unfortunately for me didn’t ooze the sexual aspirations of the famous rocker who by 1984 had shagged well over a thousand women.
Source
...'I had the lips, but not the chicks. Life wasn't fair in 1984, maybe I needed to wash that pungent overall more often?'...
Gingers were as popular then as now, but Barbara had a thing for them. There are always deviants however you look at things and I considered myself fortunate to bestow a head full of bright carrots the day I asked her out.
Asking Adele for a copy of the newly released, 'Grace Under Pressure' by Rush took her opinion of me a notch lower. I could see the mental words exiting both ears simultaneously; she didn't need to say a word.
…‘Fucking delinquent 70’s hippy taking away my best mate, defiling her, carrot head, freak, massive lips, heavy-metal aberration, can't even speak clearly'…
Source
...'Rush were not trendy in 1984. A product of the 70's and highly unfavoured by the likes of trendy Adele, I should not have tried to impress Barbara's best mate by buying this awful heavy music'...
The latter point I would concede. Adele was too good-looking for her own good and that makes a young lad with virtually no confidence clamp up like a crab hiding in its shell.
Adele had recently dumped this dude named Kevin. I was loathe to bring up the fact that the very same 'Keven' was a kid I knew from junior school. We had been friends until he had moved away and joined another school.
That knowledge would have cemented her decision to be correct, and the desperate Kevin was trying in vain to woe her back into bed, calling 'Ames', a dozen times a day.
...'I didn't frequent these stores, the pricing was prohibitive, and what did I get for spending my hard earned Kwiksave money?, more loathing...
Source
I had given Ames a sale and snagged a copy of 'Blue Monday' 12' version at the same time. Adele begrudgingly handed over the vinyl and took my money, holding on to the records a little too long.
Would I need to pull them out of her fucking hands? My relationship with Adele only got worse from that day; thankfully encounters from then were none too frequent.
She might have been a hot sexy, shaggable minx, but she had a massive chip on her shoulder.
Epilogue: Having lips the size of the average African black man might have proved a hindrance in my early years, but as age comes on your lips tend to shrink (as well as everything else).
I have since been told by a future partner that she... 'would die for my girly lips'. Strange how things come full circle eh?
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. Some images produced using Bing AI.
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