In My First Job, I Was Kissed in the Stockroom

His name was Grant, and he was easily fifteen years older than me. I was a check-out chick at the local supermarket. I worked Thursday nights and Saturday mornings and sometimes all day during school holidays.

I received my pay weekly, in cash, in a small, mustard envelope. A handrwitten slip detailed how many hours I worked, how much tax was taken out, and my net pay — in notes and coins. At sixteen, taking the money I earned to the bank was a big deal. I saved enough to buy my first car — a canary yellow Toyota Corolla, even though I wanted a Toyota Celica.

On the days I worked all day, I wouldn’t necessarily be on check-out. I would stack shelves, which had me going to the stockroom at back of the supermarket, through rigid and opaque plastic curtains. Grant was the stockroom manager, and I secretly had a little crush on him even though he waas married. It was like having a crush on a teacher, harmless because I knew nothing would come of it.

Grant was good-looking with a black beard and he smelled of Brut. I can’t remember how it happened, but one day, I went to the stockroom looking for products so I could fill an empty shelf. He grabbed me as I walked past him and planted a sloppy kiss directly on my lips. I don’t remember kissing him back, or pulling away, probably because it was so unexpected. There was no flirting in the lead-up from either of us. I didn’t tell anyone, because who would I tell? What could they do?

It didn’t happen again, which was just as well because I developed quite the aversion to Grant. I heard on the grapevine that he tried it on with other young, female members of staff. We had an unspoken pact to keep away from him, because that was the easiest and simplest thing.

I stayed in that job for another two years, until I left school, and got a proper job in a bank. Like a grown-up.

347 words.

About the #MicroMemoir2025 Challenge

After successfully completing my #12Essays2024 Challenge — by the skin of my teeth, mind you! — I’ve set myself another writing challenge for 2025. This time, my challenge is to write 62 micro memoir pieces this year because I’ll be 62. I’ve done the maths: it’s one piece every five days or so. I got the idea from Deborah Sosin’s post on Brevity, where she wrote about the 70 x 70 word micro memoir pieces she crafted to commemorate/celebrate her 70th birthday. She ended up publishing these pieces as a book. Like Deborah, I enjoy the creative constraints of writing short pieces (and I’ve had some success writing flash fiction). I’ve done a number of Craft Talks workshops on writing micro memoir, but haven’t really written any. So, self, let’s get to it. Challenge accepted, although my word count will be a tad more lenient.