Expect It When You Least Expect It

By TJ Seitz

Short story about a teen during the mid 1980's and his job at a local grocery store.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TJ Seitz
• Release date: May 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310455155

TJ Seitz

On the surface Mr. Seitz appears to be a quintessential middle aged male. TJ is married to his HS sweetheart and lives with his family in a suburban split level house located on the outskirts of Rochester, NY. Seitz has spend the majority of his professional career working as an information technology specialist in the fields of education, criminal justice/law enforcement and procurement. While working full time, TJ also attended college part time (and sometimes full time). To keep himself (relatively speaking) sane he majored and minored in non-technology subjects, earning a BA in English with a writing concentration from Saint John Fisher College and a MA in Social Policy from Empire State College. As an undergraduate student TJ attended writing classes taught by George Saunders and Judith Kitchen (though neither teacher would probably remember him). Distractions like kicking virtual wasp’s nests on BITNET Listservs (predecessors to social networking sites like Facebook), soliciting donations for a Panty Alter fund and hanging out with a heavily medicated professional drummer named Dirtbag interfered with TJ’s ability to write anything particularly noteworthy for either class. He also attended a workshop at the Omega Institute mentored by Marge Piercy and Ira Wood. In reality the stable full time jobs have been serving as functional fronts for TJ’s secret life as a writer. They provided him with money to pay his bills and experiential material to write about. The down side of working and going to college was that he did not have a lot of time to devote to writing and publishing. Adding a problematic first marriage, babies, a divorce, a few bouts with unemployment and colon cancer to the mix did not help much either. TJ is currently working on several writing projects/ideas and recently took a graduate writing class proctored by James Whorton. Mr. Seitz's essays and letters have been printed in both local and national publications. His poetry has been published both in the United States and England.

Book preview

Expect It When You Least Expect It

T.J. Seitz

Copyright 2014 by T.J. Seitz

Smashwords Edition

Why Wally Wilson Got a Job

Wally Wilson was a seventeen year old shelf stocker at the Tops Friendly Supermarket in Fairport, New York during the summer of 1985.

His practical–minded mother compelled him the previous year to get the job, several months after he quit the morning paper route that he worked since he was eleven.

She found him smoking marijuana with some friends in the backyard when coming home from work early one afternoon.

An unfamiliar blue Pontiac Phoenix with a white roof was parked in front of the house.

It had three stickers on its back bumper. One supporting the Reagan-Bush 1984 presidential ticket, another for the Penfield Indians and the third was an advertisement for a club in the city called Scorgie’s

Mrs. Wilson assumed one of her sons had a friend over.

The music on a dilapidated tune-box was turned up really loud. Wally and the small group of revelers were singing along to the Genesis song Illegal Alien and didn’t hear her car pull into the garage.

A window was propped open with a splintered paint stick. The skunky smell permeated the structure and surrounding area.

There was no denying what the four kids were up to.

Everyone but Wally scattered when Mrs. Wilson poked her head around the corner.

Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper just started playing on the radio.

Wally was too stoned and dumbfounded to say or do anything but finish the last two bites of a banana he was eating. The ‘smoking bong’ was literally right there next to him, on a rusty wrought iron patio table.

It was the second time in less than two weeks we that Wally was caught getting high.

The elderly Jewish couple who lived across the street, Mr. and Mrs’ Kott, spotted Wally and one of his buddies passing what they thought was a pipe in the nearby cemetery.

Mrs. Kott said something to Wally’s mom the next day, but Mrs. Wilson was not overly concerned. She presumed that her son was just experimenting and that the phase would quickly run its course after the novelty wore off.

Rather than make a big scene, Mrs. Wilson remained quiet and went into the house as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.

Wally was worried, but he wagered on the small chance that his mother’s