Pickin’
by Sandra Ellston
Seal Rock, OR
The taste of toothpaste at 5 a.m. is enough to induce vomiting. My lunch was made last night: a hefty sandwich, frozen Snickers bar, and pop, frozen too, so it will still be icy at noon. There is gossip to continue with the girls on the bus as we prop our cut-off clad knees against the seat in front of us, and flirtations to pursue with the migrant boys. I know just enough Spanish to catch when they’re talking about us. Even with flirting, they pick twice as much as we do. They crouch by the rows and their hands move swiftly, flicking the berries into carriers. We girls begin by straddling the rows and twisting each berry from the stem; we progress to eating more than we put in our hallecks and end by sitting in the dirt rows and moving along by shuffling our buttocks in a sluggish walk. When the sun is high, off comes Dad’s old shirt, and we work on our tans, dangerously blistering our shoulders. After lunch we goof off and make enormous strawberry wounds on each other in battle. We return filthy and giddy from a day too good to have missed.
