Does anyone even believe in that superstitious crap in this day in age? If two different writing groups hadn’t challenged me to write about Friday the 13th I probably wouldn’t even have realized today was the day! I woke up to severe pain in my neck that swiftly traveled into my jaws. As I sat upright to get up, my eyes refused to focus. The pain was unbearable. Tears came to my eyes as I struggled to the bathroom. I took some medicine, warmed up my bed buddy in the microwave, and headed back to bed where I promptly threw up and waited for the mother of all migraines to pass.
When my cell phone rang around ten I was still sound asleep which isn’t like me on a Friday. It is pay day. Usually I am up early, figuring the bills, and planning the day. Not today. My migraine threw me a curve. As I answered the phone I realized with relief I was starting to feel better. Still things had to be done. Better to get up and get on with it than laze away in bed. Then I was overcome with an overwhelming craving for blueberries. I have never taken my kids to pick blueberries and despite the 90 degree heat I was game. When I was growing up my mom always took me to the blueberry ranch to pick without fail. When I was little I could be found hiding under the branches having my fill. As I grew older I realized that the quicker you picked and the less you ate the sooner you could go home. That was the mindset I explained to my kids.
I would not have thought there would have been anything in the world more annoying than listen to parents telling their kids….”Now pick the big blue ones!!” and the little tikes answering “Is this one blue enough?” To my disgust I found myself telling my kids the same thing, except I kept it short and sweet. Pick the big blue ones. If they are green, red, or croaked over, don’t pick them. Eat as many as you want, BUT unless you want to spend the whole day here I suggest you get busy picking, because when this bucket is full we are out of here! To my surprise, my kids went silently to work, occasionally popping a succulent sweet berry in their mouths but on the most part they worked at filling the bucket. Across the way one mother yelled “For the thousandth time, quit throwing the berries!” Meanwhile farther down the row a slew of teenage girls had descended on the blueberry patch from a couple of school buses. School buses in July? Yeah, you heard right and every single one of them wearing ankle length skirts. They sat between the bushes blocking the path texting, taking pictures of each other, and everything and anything EXCEPT picking blueberries!
When our bucket was overflowing with blueberries we attempted to make our way back through the sea of teenaged girls. They seemed amazed we had actually picked blueberries! Hells bells, I must be getting old but that was why I thought you came to a blueberry patch. You certainly didn’t come to sit on you’re a$$ in the dirt in ankle length skirts to play with your cell phones and take pictures of each other. If stepping over them wasn’t annoying enough, when we finally made it up to the barn to pay for our day’s take a slew of them were lined up with a few handfuls in each of their bags to have them weighed. Not separately, but all added together as a group. I waited, and fumed. I have to admit, having to wait while this rude pack of girls ordered the clerk to reweigh their few berries AGAIN because they lost track annoyed the living hell out of me.
Fortunately another person waited on us and we were soon on our way. While in the car on our way home my 6 year old piped up “Did you see them? They acted like a bunch of little kids while we acted like adults!! They were so annoying!! We acted better than they did!” I could hold myself silent no more and I giggled, then laughed right out loud. Coming from a 6 year old, that amused the living hell out of me. In my little world Friday the 13th is just another day in paradise until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.
