Discount Store Stories – Rough Housing

I remember the first couple of days working at the store as though they were yesterday.  The sights, the people, and the smell have all been ingrained into my memory forever. 

Given this almost crystal clear memory of that time,it is fairly safe to say that I was a giant obnoxious asshole while working at the discount store as a teenager, and I’m not lying with that statement.

Those first couple of weeks I just went in, did what I was told to do for work, and was fairly quiet.  Then after about a month and in a fairly quick fashion I threw my shell away, it was never to be seen in the store again.

I was fairly loud and rude on a regular basis without even realizing it most of the time – and that was when I was sober!  zing!

Anyways, I was a tiny teenager.  I was literally about 5’3″ and about 96lbs when I started working there at the age of 16.  I was so short that I needed to jump up to reach the top shelf!  I was so weak that I couldn’t wheel a handtruck full of boxes into the store because the store had a short three inch ramp at about an 85 degree angle as a step leading in.

Given my tiny size and my annoying attitude, I was easily the target of rough housing by the other stockboys – alot. 

This rough housing didn’t come out of a mean place, seeing as how small I was, they took it upon themselves to ensure that I could take hits without flinching – at least that’s what they said. 

Ever had a barbecue scraper used as a comb on your buzzed head of hair?  Or had a bbq scraper used as a hammer against your head?  Thanks to those rough housing days I have, and let me tell you this, it hurts. 

There would be full on wrestling matches in the basement, or down a narrow empty aisle at any given minute. 

While it was easy for everyone else to lift me over their head, it was easy for me to trip a guy up and be able to keep another guy pinned with only a decent effort.  For me it was all about angling, and leverage against the head and neck of my rough housing opponent.

On one occasion I remember knocking over my manager Rob, who at the time stood a good ten inches taller than me, and weighed about 150lbs plus more than me. 

He was standing in the basement with his hands in a box of Kotex pantiliners, and he had the stereo blasting at full volume.  I shouted for him, but he didn’t hear me over the sound of the Wu Tang Clan blaring next to his head. 

So, I took it upon myself to run as fast as I could the 30 feet to him, take a leap along the ways, and tackle him. 

I hit him with my right shoulder.  He was only able to see me at the last split second and my body bounced off of him, leaving me unharmed, Rob’s body bounced off of me – sending Rob careening into the boxes of Christmas junk, eventually landing on halfway on some wooden palates and halfway in the drainage pit that we called “the piss hole”.

I stood there laughing like an evil maniacal jerk as Rob just layed there with a look of shock on his face over the fact that I was able to knock him so hard onto the floor, and then Rob got up. 

He wanted his revenge, only I think that I pushed him over the edge with my extra rough rough housing besides cackling at him when he was down.  I immediately ran down the tissue aisle, turned right, ran down and around past all of the toilet paper boxes in my attempt to hide. 

“Come here you little prick.”  Rob shouted as he followed right behind me.

By running the way that I did I stupidly ran myself into a dead end.  Having not wanted to take a really hard beating – which I did many a times there for going over the line with the various stockboys – I climbed up and over the boxes of toilet paper, with my body tumbling over and off onto the other side of the basement floor, which so happened to be right at the bottom of the cellar steps.

“You fuckin bastard!  Get back here.”  Rob shouted.

I wasn’t staying, I ran up those basement stairs, and fled halfway up the block.  I stayed a good distance away from the store until Rob was able to calm himself down that day.

A couple of days later he knocked me to the ground when I wasn’t paying attention on the first aisle.  In doing so, he knocked himself to the ground too. 

Even though he was on top of me at first, I grabbed and held his neck with one arm – rendering him immobile, thereby safely keeping him at close bay from me, with him squirming on top of me trying to free himself.

A couple of days after that he just came up from behind me, picked me up, and tossed me into the boxes of garbage at the back of the store.  After I landed he proceeded to pummel me with punches to the legs and forearm shivers to the forehead – for some odd reason I loved working there.