Harvesting Grapes

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Grape arbors seem so romantic, a part of sunny days where the owner sits on his tiled porch, overlooking the hills of grape vines and sipping wine as a breeze plays with his graying hair.

Unfortunately, someone has to pick the silly grapes. And double unfortunately, that someone is me.

I once received training so that I could work in the fields here in California. I think my certification has expired now, but no matter. The grapes I have to pick aren't in a field. They are on a vine climbing up the side of my house.

All I need is a good ladder and someone who wants to climb it so that I don't put myself in harms way. I'll just hold the ladder steady.

Or maybe I will hold the ladder while the supporting joint unlocks and knocks me underneath my nose.

Don't ask my how exactly it happened. Suffice it to know that it did. And I have the bruise to prove it. It extends from cheek to cheek and from the roof of my mouth up into my forehead.

This event has brough notice to the fact that there aren't ice packs with airholes in them. There must be a market out there for them. Maybe you should invent one and then give me a small percentage of your earnings as I provided the inspiration. I'll use the gift for something good. Like maybe buying grapes at the supermarket.

Comments

Anonymous said…
It is important when getting injuries to consider how you are going to explain them to your friends. While receiving massive bruises to your face from a ladder accident seems somewhat bizarre, it ranks, I believe, slightly less humiliating as, say, falling out of bed. Or take my injury for the day: I was walking, and I fell and scraped up my hands. (Both of them. The skin is off of a part of my palms.)

When someone asks how I got my injury, it seems hard for them to accept the simple answer: I was walking. Even my 3-year-old godson did not think that explanation was good enough. He asked over and over, "But WHY?"

He wouldn't understand the difficulty of giving truthful answers about injuries, because he attributes all of his injuries, regardless of the actual cause, to soccer wounds.
5:29 PM
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