My summer in the Garden
I think I was about 11 or 12 years old, and my mother (bless her soul, the easily led women she is) came home from her place of business with a proposition - Her boss also ran a 'market' garden , and needed an assistant for a couple of weeks. The pay would definitely be 'worth my while' - keep these words in mind....

For the next three weeks I did it all - picked tomatos, planted tomatos, hacked and weeded overgrown and neglected garden beds, painted obsolete doors and walls, stacked and packed tomatos (a bit of theme developing here), raked driveways, dug ditches, even to the point of removing the previous occupants of his rabbit/horse/chicken bowels on a daily basis for fertilizer. Seriously, I doubt a japanese beaver working under slave-like circumstances, would put in as many hours as I did.

Of an evening, I would go home, sore, bruised, reeking of all things tomato related, my child spine cracking like an 1850's propsectors, but happy. Happy in the knowledge of the 'worth my while' pay packet that would be mine at the end of the month - I'd even started circling pics of the new mountain-bike I would aquire with my new found wealth, and dreamed of the envious looks and glances of the neighbourhood kids as I'd flash past in a blur, and the possible romantic misunderstandings that I could have with little Felicity (the cutie at the end of my street, that I was sure would succumb to my wealth-enhanced charms).

So the end of the month arrives, PAY DAY - the beginning of the rest of the soon to be Best-Summer-ever. I strolled down to my place of work, knowing full well I'd seen my last tomato of the season, shovelled my last load of shit, no longer a thrall to the man.

"Morning Tim, here for your pay?" was the smooth greeting that I received from my master, a strange glint in his eye, like a slave-master rethinking the recent deal to sell the mother-child combo to the heavy-buttocked camel merchant.

"Sir, yes sir", I may have replied - I have or never will be in the marines, but it just seemed to fit).

"Well, here you go son, you've done a great job, and just like I told your mother, it will be worth your while". I swear I heard drool drip from my flacid lips and smack onto the stone floor tiles of the verandah as those words penetrated my skull - I was RICH!!

Feeling it slightly odd that instead of reaching into a vault like chest, chained up similar to Pandorra's box, from which he would delicately remove my reward/pay, he dug a hand into his pocket, removing a slightly worn, brown-leather (thin!!) wallet. From the note section at the back, he removed a crinkled, stained, and ripped $20.00 note (this is Australian dollars).

At the average going rate, as I'd roughly calulated it (drawing comparisons between paper-round, helping around the house, and other forms of income I had thus received prior to the market garden scam), I was expecting about 10 to 15 times this much. Yet the evil, foul-smelling, crooked, child-labour supporting warlock of tomato torture, mistook the rapid downward charge of my facial expressions, as shock at the rich recompence I was receiving.

"Don't worry Tim, I can afford it, and after all, you've done a fine job around the place". Although I was neither of the age or weight group that usually qualifies for spontaneous heart failure, it felt my blood-pump had stalled - all my future hopes and dreams replaced with the fire of anger straight from the brimstone-lined gates of hell.

"$£%^&*&^^&(*()~@#@#'$£"&^**()((+_&*^$%$" or at least that's what I think I said. Whatever utterance was expelled, knocked the old todger back a few feet, the $20 slap-in-the-face note drifted silently to the floor. I picked that fucker up, and went down to the garden, and kicked the first thing I saw on my way out. Which happened to be Peter, the pride and joy rabbit of the garden. Ol' Pete flew about 10 feet forward, landing with a satisfying 'thunk' into the paling fence.

I mounted my rusty, pathetic excuse for a bike, rode home, and gave another mouthful to my mother - which resulted in the $20 confiscated, me grounded, and left bitter and twisted towards any work for the rest of my life. Hence, I'm writing this from 'work' right now.
(timbrooketaylor, Fri 17 Feb 2006, 15:28, Reply)