HELP WANTED, AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY
Job Description: Parallel playmate for uneasy vegetable gardener who says she wants to be alone.
Qualifications: must be willing to sit around in the garden reading the Sunday New York Times and drink ice tea, offer occasional snippet of national news analysis or share two funny sentences. (Just the two.) Once per hour say something along the lines of “is that tough and stunning rose the one you call Martha Gonzales?” or “you just picked ALL THOSE BEANS?” or “I gotta say, no one looks hotter in overalls than you.”
Age: Not important. Ten-year-old applicants may substitute Holes by Louis Sachar for the Times. Or anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Perks: Shade umbrella, plastic Adirondack chair, ice tea with real ice, all the raw green beans you can eat.
Note: Although the gardener doesn’t, for some reason, want to be alone, she doesn’t really feel like chatting.
Obstacles: Chiggers, mosquitoes and low-flying purple martens—although for some reason they leave the gardener alone.
Pay: to be arranged by karma.
Offer expires with the gardener herself, but not before.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Now that was the best gardening job description that I have seen! (you need to do better with the perks though, like free compost tea, or fish emulsion perhaps?). Only then would I even consider being your silent yet somewhat present garden pal… that and the crossword page from your NYT’s art section.
Let me know if you are interested, I think I fit the bill.
Too Funny!
ESP.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Great post. I too would love the silent but present presence while I am gardening. I try to corral my 4 yr old into it, but he just wants to go to the playscape.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
The only thing that might possibly make me love gardening even more would be gardening with a friend like you. Great post!
November 12th, 2008 at 5:09 am
That sounds like a great job. Much more relaxing than my gardening job, which involves handling large quantities of compost while wearing mesh-topped shoes, accidentally watering myself with the hose like an extra-thirsty perennial, and never finding the time to sit down before the mosquitoes find me. I do find time to smell all the roses, though.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
Would you accept a distance worker? Is occasional profanity in recounting those snippets national news analyses acceptable? I’d bring an extra qualification: Bumper crop of cucumbers to trade for the beans.
We miss you in Colorado, Robin — but thanks for sending up the warm, mostly frostless fall weather. I’m still growing lettuce in November.
March 15th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Love the “to be arranged by karma” part. All of it so clever.