Jobs # 1 (Sun Fresh)

My first job was as a sacker at the local grocery store. I was fifteen, it was almost summer, and I was spending hour after hour sacking groceries and collecting carts in the parking lot. Now, as an adult, when I enter this store, I still feel the oppressive glow of the lights. Silver, humming overlords bearing down constantly.

I had my first real girlfriend then, so at least I had that going for me. She told me to just quit constantly. “I can’t,” I said over the landline. “It’s my job.”

I remember always working in the evenings after going to school all day. I can’t say I gained much outside of existing in a working environment. I asked “paper or plastic?” countless times. Then, of course, came the parking lot.

My “break” during these four-hour shifts was to get out in the parking lot and “hustle up carts.” This actually worked for me. I casually smoked cigarettes and loved any time free of those lights.

One memory still sticks with me. As I was hustling up my fortieth cart of the hour, dodging inconsiderate drivers and the very random clowns that inhabit any grocery store, I hit a wall. I’d been a Catholic kid for fifteen years. I loved my family, went to church, but never understood religion.

Somehow, in that parking lot under the crimson sun, pushing carts and watching the ongoing river of humanity gushing forth before me, I decided it was okay to not believe in God for the first time. I’ve held on to it because I’ve never had a moment like that since. The impossibility of knowing what is beyond you became evident to me in that moment, and I’m forever grateful.

I’m a cynic in many regards, but when it comes to theories of the beyond, I really don’t have much to say. Maybe I need proof, maybe I’m more focused on what is going on in front of me. Either way, I’m going to always be honest with people about how little I know about the universe.