Friday June 20th, 2014

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose about: the gamble.

All the pieces are in place to have an utterly ridiculous market tomorrow. 117 pints of strawberries, 10 pints of raspberries, my cards, maybe a few mint plants if we have room for them on the truck.

And, oh yes, twenty crates (approximately twenty pounds per) of cherries.

Again, assuming we have room on the truck for all of them.

The most cherries we've ever sold at a single market was 15 crates, so I'm feeling a touch nervous about bringing so many tomorrow. But the area has been hard hit with rain and hail this spring, so I'm not sure how many other vendors will have them.

Plus we've got the boxes and local orders on Tuesday to take some leftovers if need be, so it's not an all or nothing proposition. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

Either way, very happy to report that Genevieve will be meeting us at the market. No matter how things sell, it'll be more manageable with a three person crew.

Mine:

Though I keep my focus on the cards in my hand, I know that all eyes in the room are on me. I pretend not to notice, remind myself to breathe normally. Play it cool, can't let them know I've lost ten or twenty pounds in sweat in the last ten minutes.

And maybe, just maybe, if I keep stalling long enough people will start leaving and I'll be able to think clearly again.

2 comments:

Greg said...

That's a fantastic amount of produce! And 400lbs of cherries... that's a lot of pie, jam, cake and anything else you can think of to use cherries for :) I am in awe.
I like the story today and how it ends. Not quite what I was expecting!

The gamble
Mirliton looked the buttons. They were unmarked and identical, and all the operating instructions said was that one released the lions and the other deployed poison-gas tear bombs. And without pressing one of them, he would never get out of this derelict volcano (in Manhattan for God's sake!) turned evil villain lair.
He pressed both of them, gambling that the gas would kill the lions and dissipate before he reached it, and offered out a prayer to any gods listening.

Marc said...

Greg - yes, that was a ridiculous weekend indeed.

Ooh, an evil villain lair in Manhattan! And with some very interesting traps as well. Consider me intrigued and wanting to hear more :D