The Job Not Taken (Involuntarily)

One summer when I was in college I got a coveted summer job at the historic inn just around the corner from my parents' house. I was to be a "groundskeeper," which doesn't sound so desirable in hindsight, but it paid well, would ensure I was outdoors all day and was, even more appealingly, a 3 minute walk from my bed, maximizing my morning sleep time.

On the first day, I showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed wearing cute shorts and a tennis camp T-shirt. The actual groundskeeper must have taken one look at me and made up his mind. He led me to an ancient-looking hand-operated lawnmower and told me to start, while pointing vaguely out at the horizon, where the inn's rolling lawns started about 4 miles away.

Or maybe 100 feet, but still. I had never actually operated a push mower, or any other kind of lawn mower. When I was three, my father cut off most of one finger in one while my sister and I watched, and although we always had plenty of chores around the house and yard, from this particular one we had been spared. I had done lots of weeding, and in fact, as I had confidently walked earlier that morning to the groundskeeper's shed, I had eyed the lovely flower gardens, imagining myself picking bouquets for the tables in the restaurants, plucking out the occasional clover.

Such was not to be my fate. It took me about an hour to get the thing running at all; I was too proud and too embarrassed to ask the guy how to do it. Once the motor surged, I felt a flood of relief: I still had all ten digits. And then I started pushing. It was hard, so much harder than I had imagined--or not bothered to--any time I had seen somebody else behind one on our own lawn or elsewhere. I have never been physically strong, and after 10 minutes my arms and legs ached with effort of pushing the mower through the tall grass.

After half an hour I had blisters on both hands as well as my feet, clad in unsensible sandals, and tears welled in my eyes as I struggled to turn the heavy contraption at the end of an uneven row. I looked at what I had done so far. The lawn looked as though a drunken alien had failed to complete some kind of signal visible from space for his home planet compatriots. I couldn't do it; I couldn't keep going. But I had to, because although I have become expert at the art of the half-assed job, I have never been a quitter.

By four o'clock, I had been fired. "Not for you," the groundskeeper had said, eyeing my progress, or lack thereof, and I walked home more slowly, head down, ignoring the flowers and the little brook we had caught sunfish in as children. I was exhausted, too physically spent and demoralized to even feel upset about the loss of the job. The next morning I could barely walk. My hands and feet scabbed over. And to top it off, I had been scorched. My face was so red my freckles faded into the background.

Why am I telling you this, remembering this now? Because at the end of today, after a twenty-four hour cycle of being the primary caretaker for two small, angelic-looking little girls, a cycle that included interludes with other people, a number of meals, and a modicum of sleep for each of us, it occured to me that compared to this, that day at the inn--my foray into assistant groundskeeping--was literally a walk in the park. How on earth do people do this?

I'll keep you posted.