Tuesday, October 12, 2004

A Treatise on Farm Help
I have no clue what a treatise is. It just sounds better than “Farm Help I Have Known.” Names are abbreviated because I’m tired and lazy and I can’t really use their real names …

1) Sam and the Asian guys: Sam was the only one who spoke English, and I’m not entirely sure his name was Sam. He and the others were hired through an agency, and –get this- they actually worked. Like, they weed, and picked, and didn’t lie about their hours! Then, they went elsewhere, probably because they learned English. As a result of their time, the farm started growing Asian vegetables, and they told their friends, and voila! Tons of new business. They were probably the best non-family farm help

2) E: E wasn’t too bad. He lived in a trailer, not on the property, with his mentally retarded girlfriend. (He was also on meds for something.) They worked too, and even showed up most of the time. Then E and his girlfriend moved to Maine to commune with nature, as they had been planning for years.

3) That Scary Lady: She wanted to work under the counter and barefoot. She was one of those commune with nature people. She didn’t last long because she was like, too old to try that kind of thing for an extended amount of time.

^Those were the former group, before Sam and Co. left. They weren’t worthless.

4) H: H lives in a trailer in the backyard. (Thank God they made him move the trailer out of sight from the road.) H is just odd. The man lives in a trailer in the backyard, okay? I mean, sure, the apartment won’t let him keep his dog, but there must be other places than the employer’s backyard. (It is legal for farm help, by the way.) And he seems to think he’s there more than he is, too.

5) S: Ooh, what a character. S doesn’t usually show up. Especially on Mondays. On Mondays, she needed to talk to her doctor about her medication. Which makes the public think that whatever fun prescription makes her way too peppy during the week doesn’t mix well with whatever she was doing over the weekend. Recently, she dropped off the face of the earth, not even having grabbed her check, and no one can find her. I’m voting for detox.

6) K: K is the girl on the bus who only takes it because her boyfriend is on it. When she needed to go waitressing somewhere else, she disappears.

7) P: No real complaints. I barely know him. I hate his haircut.

8) R: R is in eighth grade. His big brother does not have a job or a girlfriend. So his mother decided to show up the brother by having R have a job and a girlfriend. R is a shrimp. My aunt and I had a wonderful time making him lift things. (We’re both much stronger than this kid, but it’s like, he wasn’t really wanted or needed, so she was trying to scare him off by making him lift things, and I was sick, so I got a kick out of it.)

9) Moose: I hate Moose.

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