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Like most people, I have tried a little bit of everything along the way. One of my most memorable experiences was the year I served as a stockperson in an Ames department store. I had recently graduated from college and found out that the world was not my oyster. I thought I would walk into a high-paying job and live happily ever after. Instead, I wound up working on a second bachelors a few months later, and I had to support myself somehow. Ames? I guess beggars can't be choosers, and I was certainly begging.

I can honestly say that I was relatively attractive back then; now, I'm not so sure, but that's irrelevant. Anyway, the store manager pointed me toward a few boxed up lawnmowers and said, "We need displays. Get busy!" I spent the next four or five hours assembling some off brand of cheesy push mowers, and I was fairly engrossed in my work. I did look up from time to time, and on more than one occasion I saw a very attractive older woman (45) walking past and eyeing me up. She wore a store nametag, and I later found out that she was one of the assistant managers. To keep things simple, we'll call her Susan. Over the next few days, I saw her here and there in the store, and I learned a thing or two.

Susan was a cougar before Kim Catrall made it cool, and we would have a few odd experiences before my time there ended. Let me explain my feelings. I was 22 years old, and this woman was literally old enough to have been my mother. On the other hand, she had everything working in her favor. Stunning kind of sums it all up. She was flirty, to be sure, but in spite of numerous warnings, I never took it too seriously. Then there was that night in the store's "food room." The person in charge of the seasonal candy aisle had an order for what seemed like hundreds of boxes of chocolate and such, and I was back there loading it up on a cart. Susan came in and closed the door behind her.

"I have the key," she said. "I can lock the door from the inside. Can you imagine the trouble we can get into in here?"

Yes, I could. A million thoughts went through my head in a matter of seconds. I could break into Virginia Woolf mode and do ten pages of stream of conciousness about what happened during the ensuing fifteen second pregnant pause, but I'll keep it short. My heart was doing about 120 beats per second, and the sweat beaded on my brow. The words that came out of my mouth were something between pig latin and gibberish...

"Ummm, uh...I...uh...ummm..."

A look of disappointment

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