ARTS!
Not just regular bacon. The best bacon.
Not just regular cheese, no, cheese from Ireland. Where the grass is super green all over the place and all the cows are going, "Oh man, this is a LOT better than California."
Not just ordinary jalapeño, rather, hot jalapeño such as grown in the wilds of New Mexico by freaky native shaman.
Not just regular eggs, but big fat chicken eggs that come out of a chicken's butt.
And finally not just a regular potato, but a potato stolen from Peru and hybridized in Idaho where the best potatoes in the whole world come from and where potato-people travel from all over the world to learn the Idaho potato ways.
My very first legitimate job was a potato picker. In the first grade.
This was in Dushore Pennsylvania in the year of our lord, 1962, the same year that President Kennedy totally goofed on the Cuban missile crisis. He should have legitimately invaded and kicked their asses solid and locked up Castro in Super Max to be forgotten to history.
But n-o-o-O-O-O-o-o-o.
A local Dushore farmer needed help with gathering his potatoes so he advertised in the newspaper for help. He lived right down the road.
I couldn't read but my parents could. They told Barry and me about it.
So our parents took us over there we picked potatoes for hours.
La la la pick, pick, pickity-pick, pick pick pick. Hey Look! I got a big one!
Yeah, so what.
No, come on. This is a BIG one.
It was a regular potato.
Then the guy paid me only half what was promised but I didn't know anything about that. I didn't care. I was not part of the cash transaction. I don't know how that was handled.
But my dad did care.
He was mad as hornet.
And not just a regular mad hornet, a seriously pissed off hornet. He was in one his ass-kicking moods, and let me tell you, he was a military dude and those guys can be scary. They think they can walk right though walls. He had no problem starting a fight.
Which later in Japan, walking through walls turned out to be quite easy.
He drove us to the farmer and Barry and I stayed in the car and watched them discuss things.
We were certain we were going to see our dad kick that farmer's ass.
But he didn't. They just talked.
Turns out dopey little kids aren't worth half what regular people get paid. And he was right! I worked alright, but that didn't amount to much at all. My potato-production was nearly nothing. I was a worthless potato picker.
I was a worthless stupid unaware incompetent playful potato picker. I pulled up plants, not separate the potatoes from the clumps already upturned.
I was paid anyway. I don't know if I was paid half or one fourth or the full amount.
And I spent my money on a Halloween costume. Red pajamas with a pointed devil-tail and a devil mask.
It's what was available at the Dushore Five and Dime.
Halloween was a blowout too. For I was worthless at that too. I just wasn't interested in traipsing around getting candy.
I'd rather go out and get worms. Same flashlight. Same bucket. But I could go fishing with worms and I couldn't go fishing with candy. And I did that one time and it was super duper fun.
I threw away the devil mask because it was ugly and I threw away the pajama top because the buttons were too difficult but I kept the devil pants because I loved LOVED LOVED the devil tail.
I pretended I was a monkey.
Except the tail had an arrow point sewn into it.
And they were red.
I ignored those two un-monkey-like things and went around acting like a monkey with a glorious tail.
I wiggled my butt all over the place to get the tail to swing around.
I slept in the monkey-devil-pants night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night after night forever after night after night after night after night.
Until one night the red flannel monkey-devil-pants disappeared.
"Hey, Mum, I can't find my monkey pants."
"They must have disappeared."
"What?"
"Yeah. Sometimes things just disappear."
"What?"
"Forget about them, Honey, they're gone."
"What?"
"Your pajama pants are gone."
"What?"
"Your monkey pants are gone. Forever. They disappeared. They're never coming back. They dissolved into the air. They used their last fiber. Their red disappeared. The tail broke off and cannot be repaired. They're gone. Gone. Gone. Gone, Gone. Gone. Forever. Forever and ever. Forever and ever through eternity. You'll never see them again. Gone."
"Oh."
Man, what a bummer! Those were the best pants I ever had. And I never had another pair of monkey tail pants. It was a once in a lifetime thing.
All because of that Dushore potato farmer.
Dushore. That name still still cracks me up.
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