I thought I Was Dead. Turns Out I Was just in Nebraska

I haven't updated in a while because I've been working. No, I haven't gotten a job. I've been helping my father-in-law on his corn farm. My father-in-law is the poster child for the American farmer. He can tell you how many inches of rain his crops got in 1978. He is equally meticulous about everything he does. It's surprising to me that a man so detail oriented as he is never swears. In fact, he never raises his voice at all. Well that's not completely true. He shouts and curses plenty when I'm around.

A typical day working on the farm begins with me downing 5-7 shots of hard liquor and wishing I was dead. After that it becomes a fun filled day of picking up irrigation pipe for about 12+ hours in hundred degree weather with no breeze. For those who don't know, irrigation pipe is how water from the wells is transported to the crops. This ensures that a farmer can harvest a good yield even in dryer seasons. A good harvest ensures that grocery stores around the nation can remain well stocked so that folks who never leave the city have enough energy to act all smug and laugh at the dumb-ass rednecks.

The pipe itself is made from aluminum and each section is 30' long with an 8" diameter. The job entails walking behind a tractor at 5 mph and picking up the sections, one after the other after the other........., and loading them on a special trailer that, coincidentally, resembles a medieval torture rack!

Torture Rack

Pipe Trailer

The other day I was so drunk that I became dehydrated and repeatedly dropped my end of the pipe sections while attempting to hoist them into the trailer. Each time I dropped my end, it would send a shock-wave to the opposite end that my father-in-law was holding. This would irritate his arthritis and he would begin with the shouting and cursing which he never does. At one point he actually instructed me to walk in front of the tractor. I guessed this was so I could use the fender for leverage. On this particular day I also noticed he had his shotgun with him. That's when I decided to get my act together. I resolved to take at least one drink of water from the cooler for every 5 drinks of whiskey from the flask. 

Once I was stationed in front of the tractor, the day went much more smoothly. It's amazing how well an intoxicated person can focus on his job with ten tons of metal bearing down on him at all times. I think dad was in a hurry to get the job done because he kept instructing my mother-in-law (who was driving) to speed up! She was a good sport about it too. 

My mother-in-law is the only person I know who's more heavily medicated than I am. Medicated or not, she handles that tractor like an old pro. That is when she's not veering off into the field and destroying all the corn! I'm okay with it, though, because as long as she is driving over the corn, she can't be driving over me! During the rare times when her meds are properly metabolized in her system and not impairing her judgement, she likes to tell stories. She tells stories of her childhood, and fun times with her family. She also speaks lovingly about her children and how much better off her other daughter is mainly because she's not married to me. 

All in all, hauling irrigation pipe is the closest thing to purgatory on Earth that I can imagine. As a matter of fact, if I were given a choice between picking up pipe or the torture rack, I would have to think about it for a minute. You would think that being reduced to such soul crushing work at the hands of abusive extended family members might encourage me to go out and look for something more permanent and less punishing, but you would be wrong. A few days of hell in exchange for a couple weeks of heavy drinking is a fair trade in my book! So until next time, bottoms up my friends! Of course I can't guarantee there will be a next time as my internet could be shut off at any time for non-payment.