I dream of slow motion images of bright yellow mustard jars tumbling through space end over end to come crashing with a grotesque yellow spray onto a tile floor, only to be followed a second later by bright red, glass ketchup bottles,  grape jelly and maple syrup.  A collage is formed yet changes before my eyes as the various contents smash and mix forming a dangerous new substance waiting for some unlucky stock boy  to fall into the glass-laced malestorm...

One of my greatest learning experiences came from a small town supermarket.  Now that I'm all grown up, I can confidently say that I am a big advocate of making teenagers earn their own spending money.  Irritating part-time jobs provide a great way for suburban kids to be exposed to the real people that make up the world instead of the hyper-cute brats that inhabit the TV.

 For me work was an escape and a way to make money while on the proverbial quest to find myself.  Escape, in that as the baby brother, I knew I was considered "helpless" at home, and I desperately wanted to learn how to do some things on my own.  Money, in that I knew I wanted to go to college, and most colleges and universities aren't free unless of course you can run a four point  one forty while dragging two tacklers with you.

The store where I was employed on and off for two years was the typical large, bland American supermarket.  It was loaded with flickering greenish-white florescent lights, and it had a dairy isle, meat section, frozen food isle and all the other isles you would expect to find in a sleepy run down, small town.  The managers of this store were all in their mid thirties, overworked and under-utilized.  Most of them smoked continually, and their facial expressions conveyed the truth that they really wanted to be somewhere else.  For that reason we had a new manager about every six months.

I was a typical eighteen-year old pimply faced, bandy legged teenager at the time of my hiring.  I spent the majority of my working time thinking about three things:  girls, cars, and money.  I figured if you had the last two, you could surely get the first one.  College was, I knew, the real place my money would go, but it sure made time go faster dreaming about girls and cars.