Don't break it down for me

I work with a  crew member whom I adore, and who also sometimes drives me nuts, and at one point had me considering looking for a new job. But I decided to make it work, figured out her hot buttons, and learned how to accommodate them. And practiced being less impatient. It helps that it's obvious that she cares and wants everyone to be happy, and is essentially a kind, generous soul.

Our communication styles are diametrically opposed. I'm direct, usually too much so; she is deferentially circuitous to the point of abstraction.  An example of how our styles contrast:

Me: "Those shastas look like crap; I'll cut them back."

She: "I'm thinking that we could offer our assistance to those poor shastas over there, which look a wee bit forlorn, so do you think that you could perhaps give them some attention so that they don't look so yucky?"

While she's giving instructions like this, I'm practically doing a jitterbug of impatience. She also has to hunt for words a lot, so her instructions are loaded with "uhs" and "ums," making it all the more  brutal. I've learned to just wait it out, breathing deliberately, because I get paid either way.

She also constantly forgets two key things about me:

1. I have no sense of direction. Unless the direction is for a location within a block of where I am, please just give me an address I can plug into my phone, or some really unique landmarks to guide my way. Even though I've been to a location a dozen times over the summer, I will not know how to get to it on my own. Do not tell me to go to Main street and take a right on 122 and then left on Wing, because I'm lost already. I've explained that it's like dyslexia, and just accept that I have a learning issue when it comes to directions.

"At any given point in our day," I explained to her, "I could not begin to tell you how I would drive home; I could not even tell you in what direction I'd head. I cannot visualize how the streets relate to one another. My brain forms no mental map as I travel."

After about three of these explanations, she still insists on giving me directions, so I treat it like her learning disability that she can't understand my disability, so, resisting the urge to Lindy Hop, I listen to her directions and say, "Great, thanks! And the address?"

 2. I'm having some serious bladder issues related to other conditions. I have no problem using the outdoor executive washroom, so I usually just give a heads up that I'm heading into the woods/behind a huge rhododendron/storage shed. I've become adept at sight lines and stealth squatting.

No matter how many times I've explained that when the urge hits, I have to answer it pretty quickly, she stops and delays me by offering stammering suggestions on the nearest coffee shops that I could use instead, or, when the location does require me to drive to a coffee shop, starts giving me directions (!!!) rather than let me use my phone.  One day our conversation went like this:

Me: "I'm heading to Dunks to use the restroom--"

She: "Oh! If you want, um, um, there's a coffee shop close by, um, about oh, two miles or so. There's one down by the um - the um --Panera on Route 3, you know that one? You um --go down the street--"

Me: "I've just peed myself."

She: "Oh! Oh, well I'll let you go."

Me: "Thanks; be right back."

Then there are the house descriptions. She avoids the most obvious clues, using streets once again fortheloveofGodMontresor.

She: "The big house at the end of the street."

Me: "Gonna need more."

She: "They have the two containers."

Me: "Still nothing."

She: "They have the little front porch with the tiny boxes."

Me: "You mean the house with the two German Shepherds?"

She: "Yes, that's the one."


Another time:

She: "The house on Main Street."

Me: "Not getting a visual."

She: You cut back all the amsonia."

Me:"You mean the Dead Rabbit house?"

She: "That's the one."

For me,  two big dogs who run up and slobber all over you, or discovering two dead (likely poisoned) rabbits in the bed you were weeding would be the lead. Not "The brown house on the corner."

I also have a much fouler mouth, and I hate maintaining day lilies. So the one day when I looked over to see her yell,  "FUCKING DAY LILIES!!" I knew we'd finally come to a meeting of the minds.

The Adventures of Plant Girl, Part I

[This is a draft I didn't publish at the time it was originally written, in the first part of 2018. I thought it might be interesting to document my experiences as an interior plant technician, and then decided you didn't need to hear about over-watered dracaenas and mealybug. You're welcome.]

Plant Girl is covering a new office today, because the plant girl previously assigned there got tired of being stalked by a partner of the firm whose apparent aspiration is to be the Justin Bateman character from Juno.

Plant Girl has promised her supervisor that she will not get into it with Stalker Man, but in her fantasies:

[STALKER MAN becomes highly agitated at the realization that his stalkee is gone for good. PLANT GIRL closes door to his office and faces him with a cool, level stare.]

PG: You're an attorney, aren't you?

SM: Yes...

PG [leaning on desk, crime-drama style]: So you'll understand when I say: Cease. And. Desist.

SM [leaning back, a cornered rat]: I- I don't know what your'e talking about! I was just sharing some music I thought she might be interested in! I was just being friendly! I-

PG  [silences him with a long stare]: I think we both know that's not true. So. Those pothos aren't going to water themselves. I'll be going.

[EXIT PLANT GIRL, victorious, watering can in hand, leaving STALKER MAN speechless and terrified]

Hire me. Oh, wait.

Not only is the frost on the pumpkin, the squirrels have eaten it beyond recognition. Winter is coming to New England, but thanks to a lot of rainy non-work days last month we are still out there, cutting back frozen day-lily leaves and stabbing winter greens into rock-hard planters.I have perfected my layering configuration, and keep a ready supply of hand warmers in my car.

Still, work days are numbered, so I've begun the ritual hunt for seasonal work. I live in an expensive state, a state which constantly boats a good economy, yet the job wages that are posted would not keep a teenager in school clothes. I am stunned (STUNNED) that whether I manned a cash register at a supermarket or supported an office of highly paid professional services staff, the difference in pay if any, would be minimal. I don't mind lower pay for a relatively easy job, but if you want to use all my mad skills, there is a price tag on that.

I was commiserating with a woman I know. She has an advanced degree, is an adjunct professor at a big-name college in Boston, has published a book, and she works part-time at a well-known clothier for $14 an hour to make ends meet. A clothier whose shirts routinely cost $100.

The other problem is that given my extensive job history I've become adept at decoding job postings, determining what exactly will make me hate the job, and how quickly. Some phrases that set me off:

"Bright, enthusiastic worker greeting people with a ready smile."  I kid you not. Guess which gender usually holds the kind of job this description is attached to? Translation: "Be a nice and non-confrontational girlfriend surrogate for a bunch of fragile egos." Since when is it my job to make you feel good? What ever happened to a courteous, professional demeanor?

"A sense of humor is a must." Translation: "You will routinely be involved in our version of the Caucasian Chalk Circle, with you in the role of the baby. Be prepared to be pulled in several directions at once by rude, inconsiderate colleagues with a grossly overdeveloped sense of importance, or one high-level manager with a reputation as a Grade-A douchebag who can't be fired because he owns the place/makes us a lot of money.  Also, you must make coffee and keep the break room stocked, brightly and enthusiastically, wearing a ready smile."

I will not make travel arrangements. This is for people either functionally illiterate in the online world, or who just can't be bothered, neither of  which inspires. I have a terrible poker face/body language when being asked to perform pointless tasks for lazy people.

I will not work for less competent/professional people who make more money than I. So if your web site has typos or has clearly not had its content reviewed by a professional, or if you think it's really important for the public to know which health club you belong to, move along.

Lest you think I'm lazy (well, I am when I'm not engaged), I do apply for jobs with a reasonable commute, good working conditions, and reasonable duties.

 But we haven't yet talked about age discrimination.

Age discrimination is the delusion that because I'm not under 35, I'm a doddering fool with no mental agility who thinks technology is proof that aliens exist.  The reality is that I've adapted many, many times to a world constantly changed by technology, I don't live on my phone, and I understand that you don't look at your phone while on the job, or while someone is talking to you. 

I read goddamned books. I READ.

I was encouraged by a posting by a well-known and respected nonprofit organization that operates fitness centers and residences, but while looking at the job description, a flag went up when I read a line about "enforcing policies even if disagreeing with them." Hmmm. Clearly this has been an issue, or why in the job posting?

Using my Old People Internet Skills, I found a copy of their Employee Handbook. They do not allow (among other things): "elaborate" hairstyles, visible tattoos, or facial piercings such as nose piercings.  It should have just said, "Nothing that scares suburban white people." Made me want to dye my hair blue, get a "Mama Tried" neck tattoo, and show up in a suit. But Hey! You do get a half-hour lunch break!

I went to another job site for a package-delivery company where I was told there was a hiring fair. I had been told there was a hiring fair because I'd started an online application and didn't complete it, but was nonetheless stalked by this company that behaved like a needy ex-boyfriend. Emails reminding me to complete my application were replaced by voicemails encouraging me to apply, finally telling me of this "hiring fair."

When I hear the words "hiring fair" I envision a clean, bright conference room in neutral tones,  tables staffed with smiling, overeager employers ready to win you over with logo-printed ballpoint pens and reusable shopping bags. Given the relentless pursuit by this company, I assumed they were desperate, and expected an enthusiastic welcome, a negotiable wage, maybe even free coffee and snacks (that's when you know you have them).

I went to the address given but found only a dingy distribution center with two haggard women in company sweatshirts manning the front desk. The younger one was too busy looking at her phone to acknowledge me (SEE??!!??) They had no idea about a hiring fair. Considering grimly that this was a sampling of my potential coworkers, I followed the older woman through swinging doors into the main warehouse, a place devoid of natural light and heat, barely illuminated by some weak, invisible fluorescents high overhead. (If you have seen the movie "Alien," I think I've discovered the inspiration for the Nostromo.) There were no balloons, no bright colors, no enthusiastic welcome.

No pens.

We turned left in the gloom, and I had to step over a conveyor belt to be led into the break room, where a guy named "Mitch" was supposed to meet me. The woman instructed me to wait, and left.  The room was a small, airless, cold place of laminate tables with attached benches and a vending machine in the corner. Two men looked at me curiously. My mind turned to unmarked graves.

"Is one of you Mitch?" I asked. I was told no, but he would be right back.

I turned my attention to a poster with, among other things, the company dress code. This company also had the heebie-jeebies about tattoos, ears with more than one earring (women), earrings in more than one ear (men). Mustaches were allowed, but no beards or goatees. Apparently HQ was in a warmer climate that did not understand the protective benefits of facial hair in winter, or that mustaches went out with the pedophile/70s Porn Star fashion craze.

As I read the list of style prohibitions, a scene from the movie "Moonstruck" came into my head, specifically the phrase, "A wolf with no foot."

I took out my cell phone, went back into the dim warehouse cavern, clambered back over the conveyor belt, and re-entered the service area. I explained I'd just gotten an emergency text that I had to address, but I'd be back. I hustled to my car, drove out of the chain-link-and-barbed-wire-enclosed parking lot, and headed home.

A wolf with all her feet.

1400 Christmas trees on the wall, 1400 trees...

My work at a garden center this fall ended with the usual end-of-year ritual of this business: the purveying of the holiday greens and Christmas trees.

In my blue-collar childhood, the erection of the Christmas tree was a delirium-inducing affair that heralded a season of anticipation and wonder, of huge snowfalls and piles of gifts covering the apartment's living-room floor. (My father used to work a side job for the now-defunct Parker Brothers toy company, so we were never at a loss for board games. Interestingly, he also worked part-time for a jail situated directly across the road from PB, which may have exacerbated his neuroses. He was not a hardened man, despite his marriage to my mother.)

Because we always had an artificial tree, I, with my child's egotism, assumed this was because artificial trees were superior to their ephemeral natural counterparts, and I pitied my friends who had to settle for fragrant, feathery boughs and disappointingly non-segmented trunks.

The first best part of the tree ritual was my mother telling my father it was time. This was said in a casual way, suggestive of a choice in the matter, but the sudden silence, the angry terror on my father's face revealed the truth: he was that tree's bitch, and we all knew it.

The tree resided in the cellar in a huge cardboard box that got more battered each year. It was comprised of a three-part central pole that screwed together and contained color-coded holes that matched -- once upon a time -- the paint on the wire ends of the tree "branches." These were heavy, twisted wire covered in some form of plastic blue-green bristles that endeavored to look coniferous. The overall effect was of an overly large broom handle sprouting green toilet brushes.

Over the years, the paint on the "branch" ends began to wear off, which led to the second part of the tree ritual: the arguing. We kids enjoyed this almost as much as the decorating. My father would try in vain to insert the branches correctly the first time so as to avoid my mother's editorializing, but we all knew this was a futile endeavor, and watched his progress with the combination of pity and glee usually reserved for kids who threw up in school.

After a period of criticizing by my mother, yelling by my father, and taunting laughter from us kids, my father had to string the lights. This was the '70s, so a broken strand would be fixed by unscrewing the large, offending bulb and replacing it. It was our job to find the bulb, which we did with gusto. After this, we all decorated the tree, a process that restored harmony as we happily dug out our favorite pieces and hung them, transforming a hideous monstrosity into something beautiful and bright.

If our family Christmas-tree ritual smacked of Tennessee Williams, the tree drama that played out in the garden center was a mix of Shakespearean melodrama and operatic tragedy.

We started with over 1,400 trees from Quebec province. Purchases began the day after Thanksgiving, with people concerned about the "freshness" of the trees, but demurring at the suggestion of a $3.49 bottle of preservative that would actually keep them fresh, sensing some kind of compensatory scam.

The Frasier Firs went first, because this is a clientele that believes in Better and Worse, and they want Better, always. The center indulges this by selling Frasiers that have been sheared in the last year for a denser, more traditional shape. The hoi polloi settle for balsam firs.

(I'd always gotten my trees from supermarket parking lots, and a pop-up lot manned by a gentle if embittered semi-alcoholic selling trees from a tiny trailer. My criteria had been size --small, please-- and price --also small, please).

Watching people inspect trees with all the intensity of affluent but barren couples in a Chinese orphanage was another new exposure to The Way Rich White People Think.

And then, a week before Christmas, we sold out. We bought several trees from local vendors also down to the dregs, but who kept the few remaining larger ones for their own customers. Stragglers hurried in, desperate and astonished, their faces masks of the dawning hysteria from forays to other tree yards that places were emptying, that they had waited too long. They looked in tattered shock at the few trees we had left.

"Are these all the trees you have?" they'd squeak in Puccinic dismay.

"Uh, yes. How many do you need?"

"Well, one, but.."

"Well, we have more than one."

But they wanted choice. They wanted to believe that the tree they bought was a special tree, a tree for them; picking from a cluster of five trees, albeit perfectly good ones, hinted at remainders, of other people's cast-offs, and that would not do.

When we were down to about four trees, an older man and and his wife arrived; he looked at the small selection in disdain and, shoulders back and three-quarters turned in a way that recalled nothing so much as Macbeth cheating to the audience as he cried Lay on Macduff! he announced to me across the tarmac, "I have been buying trees here for TWENTY-ONE years, and this is the first time I won't be buying my tree here!"

"We do have trees," I said, gesturing, courteous but unmoved by his existential crisis. "We did have over fourteen hundred, but they sold out."

Because people who make this such a fucking life-or-death event have the sense to not wait seven days from Christmas to shop for a tree.

"They aren't large enough!!!"

Ah, yes. The large tree. The one that will rise like Babel's Tower under the cathedral ceiling/in the atrium/next to the fireplace. The one designed to impress. There were at least two trees remaining that could honestly claim six feet, but no. No, they would not do. They lacked presence.

The man looked at his poor wife and announced balefully, "I guess we won't have a tree this year!"

From my cashier's window in the unheated shed where I'd spent four hours in thirty-degree weather, I smiled my broadest smile, leaned forward, and said,

"But you have each other."

Is it a musical if it's not..you know... musical?

A family friend supports an amateur theater group in a neighboring town. So far I've been able to rely on "conflicts" to avoid such things as "Nunsense." (My mother: "That Sister Amnesia was SO funny!") I smile, knowing I'd have hated it and its formulaic easy laughs.

Most things that my family finds entertaining I find cringeworthily awful. I'm not trying to be a snob (I went to a sing-along showing of Grease; I can have mindless fun as much as anybody). But they are the kind of people who think Olive Garden is Dining Out, and a weekend in a Connecticut casino is the pinnacle of a vacation experience. It doesn't make me happy that I dislike pretty much everything they enjoy; I feel churlish and unkind (remember Zooey sitting on the bathtub at the beginning of J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey? Yeah; like that. Sometimes I see myself dead in the rain.)

So I decided to Make An Effort, and went with my uncle, mother, sister, and another family friend to this theater to see Jack The Ripper: The Whitechapel Musical.

The title had promise. It could either be incredibly dark or it could be hilarious.

Well, it turns out it wasn't dark, although it tried to be. And it was also hilarious, another result not even on nodding terms with the intent.

An actor gave the Turn Off Your Phones speech in character before the show, and inserted dramatic pauses wide enough to drive a freighter through. When the Turn Off Your Phones speech gets milked, it does not bode well.

My mental notes:

When you are cutting someone's throat, it's done quickly, because in real life people don't hold still while you sllllooooowwwlly drag your Eeeeeeeeviiiiiilll kniiiiffeeeee across their throat for overly dramatic effect.

When a character says things like "I'm so afraid!" or "Who will be next?!?" Don't have them sit casually on the line and sip their drink.

To be fair, this was an odd and difficult choice for amateur theater, primarily because 99% of the show was sung. As in, instead of saying lines, they were sung. Judging from what I saw, whomever wrote the music is overfond of Phillip Glass. Predominately minor notes and forced harmonies to the point I wanted to grab the knife myself and take the easy way out.

There were a couple of genuinely decent songs, but most of them were appallingly trite. I felt bad for the cast, except for when I wanted to beat them into picking up the godforsaken pace.

During intermission, after a first act that contained something like forty tortuous songs, my uncle turned to me and said, "the songs are a little harsh. A little..."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'awful,' I suggested. He smiled and nodded conspiratorially.

It didn't help that we were in the first row (NEVER the first row!) and I would be overcome by fits of laughter when The Ripper made his appearance. I hid behind my program and tried not to shake, lest I destroy any confidence.

My mother loved it.

Smelling

I have always been blessed/cursed with a prodigious sense of smell.

I never realized that I experienced the world in a more olfactory way than most other people; I just thought other people had a greater tolerance for offensive odors than I did.

The first real memory I have of the dawning realization that I might be different was a time about 28 years ago when I was at my grandmother's house with my family.We walked through the front door, and I stopped.

"There's a dead mouse in here," I pronounced, thinking I was merely voicing what, surely, everyone else had also noticed.

My mother turned to me. "A what?"

"A dead mouse."

"Where do you see a dead mouse?"

"Can't you smell it?" I asked, as waves of thick, putrid-sweet decomposing rodent gagged at the back of my throat.

"I don't smell anything," my mother said, with her trademark annoyance.

Thinking my mother was just being her standard contrary self where I was concerned, I asked the rest of the family, "Don't you smell it?"

They looked at me blankly. "No," each one said, although my obvious certainly was starting to unnerve them in a "She sees dead people" way.

I went upstairs to use the bathroom; the air on the second floor was blessedly purer.

I returned to the first floor, and a wave of Dead Thing hit me in the face like a damp rug.

"OH MY GOD HOW CAN  YOU NOT SMELL THAT?!?"

By now they were looking at me in a way that made me think of Ingrid Bergman and faulty lighting.

Ignoring their nervous stares, I dropped to my knees and began sniffing the floor, I kid you not, like an honest-to-God bloodhound. I followed the smell to an upholstered chair with panels hanging from the front. I stood, pulled the chair a few feet, and there was the body of a small mouse, its side bearing a puncture mark. Clearly my grandmother's small dog had bested the poor thing, which had crawled under the chair to die.

"AAAAAH HA!" I exclaimed triumphantly, pointing to the dead mouse.

My family looked at the mouse, then at me, and then, after a bit of silence, my mother said,

"Well, I never smelled it."


I noticed at one office job that I was the only one who smelled my boss's foot odor and bad breath. Others just smelled an office; I smelled a pit of foot sweat and gingivitis and would often breathe through my mouth when meeting with her.

It affected my personal life, too: I'd been married to a man who had bad gums, smoked, and never saw a dentist. That was the least of our problems, but I stopped letting him touch me. No sex without foreplay, no foreplay without kissing, and no kissing when your partner's mouth smells like a dumpster on a warm day.

A former boyfriend likewise was dentist-averse, and would have to brush his teeth before I could kiss him. When we'd first started dating he'd given up cigarettes; I'd explained I wouldn't date a smoker, and that if he voluntarily gave them up, he should harbor no illusions about getting away with sneaking one.

He kissed me one night, and I asked, "Did you have a cigarette?"

He was astonished. "I had one. Yesterday morning."

"Yeah. I can taste it. That's what I meant about being able to tell."

"Wow, I'm impressed."

"You should be. Go brush your teeth."

It makes life harder for me and others, but hygiene is not negotiable. Perhaps the subsequent women in these men's lives couldn't tell anything was amiss; for me it was like visiting a body farm. I imagine they are far happier with women who can't smell the teeming bacteria in their inflamed gums from across the room. Ah, love.

When I moved into my uncle's house, I could tell when I walked in the door that the cat box in the cellar needed changing and the dehumidifier needed emptying.

I could also tell that one of his cats had sprayed in several parts of the house. I soon discovered that the spraying would be resumed, on my belongings.

So while I silently retched at the stench of cat piss, and sniffed all over the house with a rag in one hand and a can of Nature's Miracle on the other, my uncle looked on in astonishment.

"I can't smell anything," he'd say, and I wanted to yell, "HOW does anyone not smell cat piss???!!??"

(Or cat crap outside the box, or the funk of a humid basement, but one battle at a time.)

Like a ghost hunter, I'd tracked down all the haunted spots -  instead of cold spots, they were pockets of smell that I would travel into, stop, back up, and try to pinpoint. I'd gotten all but two, which eluded me.

And today was the victory. Zounds, Jenkins, I cracked The Case of the Ephemeral Stairway Stink and The Mystery of the Living Room Miasma!

Every time I ascended the carpeted stairway, I'd smell cat pee about halfway up. I'd stop, drop, and smell. Nothing. Could not find the source. I sniffed the floors, the walls; nothing.

Today I cracked the case with the help of two of my cats, who pointed me right to the odor.(My cats don't spray. Fact, not delusion.)

At the top of the stairway is a bathroom, which is my uncle's, and one I rarely use. I watched my cats sniff vigorously at the base of the shower curtain. I dropped and smelled. Eureka!

The reason I always smelled it when I was halfway up the stairs is because it was there that my nose was on the same level as the bottom of the shower curtain. Brilliant.

As for the living room, I finally determined that the Piss Ground Zero was tucked behind the cat tree, soaked into a corner of curtain. I took one of the several cans of nature's Miracle strategically placed around the house, and nailed it.

To quote the line from Poltergeist, This house is clean.

For now.

A Farm Farewell

Today was my last day at the farm. This is a beautiful property purchased and restored by a woman ("Erica") with a dream.

What the dream is, she hasn't really been able to articulate. 

It's a demonstration farm. Only she doesn't want lots of people on her property.

It's a farm for growing and selling herbs, only she only wants to do wholesale despite issues with the ability to produce on a wholesale level, and her recalcitrance at having the salesperson actually try to drum up sales for fear that things will move too fast, and terrible things like success will happen, possibly leading to people on her farm.

The other offerings are cool workshops on homesteading skills, offered at the farm and designed to bring people to the farm.

You see the mind-fuckery here.

Coming from an extremely wealthy family has allowed her the luxury of hiring people and buying expensive equipment and draft horses and and retaining an expensive architect who specializes in historical restoration.The place is beautiful, has won restoration awards, and hey, if this is what she likes, go her. I liked her, although she can be stubborn and moody in that way that people with a big buffer of cash can indulge in.

The thing is, when you are trying to understand your goals and purpose each day, it can be a bit frustrating. So I would often comfort myself by kissing the horses and wandering the permaculture garden, where I'd eat things off the ground.

It wasn't a terrible job, but after a few months, the sense of not really fitting in was wearing thin. There was a cliquishness between the head gardener "Penny" and one of the other women,"Sally," and while the marketing gal "Karen" was super nice, she had the attention span of a cat in a room with a flock of moths.

Then we had the other part-time help, a young man,"Wilson." right out of college. His major had been music, but apparently his permaculture workshop certificate, accompanied by his ability to make declarative statements and carry a penis, earned him a deference that baffled me.  

I sensed an issue with Penny during my interview, when she told me somewhat defensively that she didn't have a degree but learned all she knew when she lived overseas. I'd come across this before, this fear that my college education was somehow going to cramp their authority. The owner hired me, and I tried to keep a low profile, hoping to learn from Penny, but she barely spoke to me, and I'd arrive to the farm to find her disappeared somewhere in the extensive garden. I mentioned to Sally that I'd been hoping to learn more than I was.

"Oh, Penny really doesn't like to manage or explain. She just prefers to be in the garden."

Except that Penny was the head gardener, and seemed to find the need to give me work just one more chore, which meant I usually had to track her down to ask what she needed me to do. One morning I arrived and couldn't see her, so I started harvesting some pole beans Karen had said we needed for our six farm shares (oh yes; we were also sort-of selling farm shares, in a half-assed what-can-we-find-today way). 

Penny eventually appeared in the distance, saw me, and bitched me out loudly from a knoll for not coming to her first, because she might have something for me to do.

What ran through my head as possible responses:

"If you are so concerned about organization and assigning chores, HEAD GARDENER, you might want to be at the top of the garden WHEN WE ALL ARRIVE AT 9 rather than buggering off a half-acre away in your own world, and I'm not sure how many times I can suggest a daily morning gathering to discuss the strategy for the day, only to have my idea embraced by the others and dismissed by you."

"Why is it I'm the only one who catches shit for doing what everyone else does when they don't want to track you down by the freaking calendula? Why is this tone of voice reserved for me?"

"Fuck you and the Monarda fistulosa you rode in on."

What I actually did was put down my harvest basket and say, "I'm really sorry, Penny; Karen had said we needed this for the CSA today, and since I couldn't find you I wanted to be productive, so I started in on this, but I can certainly do this another time if you have something pressing."

Feel like an overreacting asshole yet?

"Well... no, I don't, but I want you to come to me first."

Then what the fuck?!?!?

"I understand, and really, if you have something you'd rather have me work on, I'm happy to do this later."

Because I'd hate to recklessly focus on the farm shares that are being picked up today when I could be satisfying your need for a good old kowtow, by harvesting herbs for which we have ZERO buyers.

"No, I don't have anything."

Except a giant bug up your ass.

"OK, so I'll do this then, and check in with you when I'm done."

I didn't question the validity of the message; what irked my shit was that she rarely spoke to me, and when she did, it wasn't "Hey, could you make sure to check in with me," it was Full Bore Spank in a tone that she would never, EVER have used on the other workers. I was being treated like some wayward adolescent, and I wondered whether she was projecting some sort of insubordination motivation on me because my education threatened her.

Oh yeah, there was another thought:

Really? For fifteen dollars an hour I have to take this?

So the weeks went by, and the loneliness and irritation grew, and there was only so much bright smiling I could do when I saw people or asked what needed to be done, and I watched Wilson decide he wanted to focus on making tea, and didn't want to do more onerous things, and whined about having to walk across the farm, and he was completely accommodated and not once reined in, and I seethed at the remembrance of the Pole Bean Ass-chewing. And the other women discussed their hobbies and gossiped about mutual acquaintances, and the latest projects their contractor husbands were working on, and I remembered why I hate the North Shore suburbs.

At the beginning of this, my last week, a school bus full of ten-year-olds arrived for a field trip. I was sent to stake some blown-over dahlias in the garden, which I proceeded to do. While I was doing this, Penny came by with part of the group.

"We've planted peach trees and apricot trees and medlars and paw paws," she rattled off, while the kids squinted at her.

They're TEN. They have no idea what medlars are. Or paw paws. tell them what they are and why they were planted. Explain permaculture.

But no. Explaining isn't her thing.

They came down by where I was working. She saw them looking at me.

"JC is staking some dahlias that blew over," she said in passing as they went by.

I stood and smiled. "We like to keep these off the ground because it's important to have good air circulation around them, or they can develop things like fungus, and be susceptible to bugs and disease."

Penny just looked at me and then started a pollinator speech.

"Which are the best pollinators? Bees. Right."

Tell them which bees, and why.

Nope.

They are standing in front of a bank of lemon balm. Pick some and let them smell it.

Nope.

Finished with my chore, I headed up and walked into Penny's buddy, Sally, with a group. Everyone was helping, it seemed, except the person who used to organize and lead tours for school kids at an animal shelter. Who would that be? Oh right.

"Hey, guys," I said to the kids, "Make sure you don't touch anything without checking with Sally first, because we have stinging nettles in here and if you touch them they are worse than a bee sting."

"Oh --oh yeah," Sally said absently, walking past me.

You're welcome.

Today there was another tour, and I watched Erica try to gain control of her group as I potted some plants she'd asked me to collect for a float for the fair. I watched as she coaxed out the chickens and then tried in vain to explain about chickens over the din.

When you want kids' attention, never put something more interesting than you in front of them. P.S. live animals are always more interesting.

They moved on, and I continued my work. Wilson was having hand issues, and apologized for not being able to help much. I assured him that his company and conversation was value enough.

Eventually the kids went with their teachers to have lunch, and Erica came over.

"I shouldn't be paid for today," Wilson said to her.

"Why?" she asked.

"His hand is bothering him," I said, working on the plants. "I told him his company was good enough, and he is helping some, that it's not a moral failure--

"CAN I PLEASE TALK TO HIM ALONE?" Erica snapped at me.

I stood there, stunned. Her normal voice is very quiet and I hadn't realized she'd started speaking to him.

Still, and not for the first time at this place, I thought, "Who the FUCK are you to speak to me that way?!?"

Instead, I stared at her for a few seconds, said, "Sure," and went back to my work. I checked the time, debated just walking off the job, but decided to make my money off her before leaving. It was my last day, after all.

I went into the barn, where the draft horses were cross-tied for the kids, calmed myself with some horse-nose smooching and neck scratching, and then went to harvest nettles at Penny's direction.

While harvesting by the fence, Erica came down.

"Is today your last day?

"Yes, it is."

"Oh, well thank you for everything. Those plants look good."

"You're welcome. Do you have enough?"

"I think so."

"OK. Well, I have friends who are interested in the workshops, so I'll likely be back."

Like hell.

"OK, well, I have to go pick some things up and I probably won't be back before you leave, so I wanted to thank you."

"OK, thank you too."

She left.

During the entire conversation I kept working and did not once look at her. The thing is, I'd really liked her, and I thought we got along. But when someone is that rude, it just says that this is the relationship the other person has always assumed; it just never played out until then.

As I left for the day, the young man who books the workshops said, You're in school, right? I never knew what for."

"Environmental Horticulture."

He looked stunned. "I never knew that."

I smiled wryly. "Why would you? After all, we have the benefit of a music major who took a permaculture workshop."

"Wow, I didn't know; that's really cool that your'e studying that."

"I think so. Take care."

Next week I work at a garden center where the people really like me. And for a new landscaper where the crew really likes me.

But no chickens, alas.