As a young girl growing up in central Maine and raised by my single mother, helping out around the house was a necessity, not a choice. By the age of nine, I had been getting myself ready for the school bus in the mornings for two years and making darn sure I didn't miss it because it was a long, grueling walk to town especially in the snow. About this time, my mother had taken on a second job on the weekends at a chicken barn up the road picking eggs and I would go with her to avoid having to stay home in the lonely house alone. After the third weekend of these new adventures I had gotten to know the business owner a little and he offered me a job. I was assigned my own two rows of the chicken barn and would be responsible for all of the eggs along the way. I don't know if you've ever picked eggs in a full size chicken barn, but it's quite a process, especially for a nine year old girl.
Picking eggs sounds simple right. Just walk along, reach in, grab the egg, and move on. It's not that easy- trust me. The entire process starts out in the crate room where I was assigned my very own cart. I remember feeling so proud that I actually had a job and even better, was going to earn my own money for that pair of Nike's I had been wanting. I had been watching my mother do this now for three weeks so I had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done. I loaded the bottom of the cart with as many empty egg flats as I could squeeze on, remembering to carefully dismantle the boxes they came in as I emptied them and stack them in the appropriate corner. There, that was done-now comes the fun part, and I struck off, full of confidence and a smile on my face.
Chickens look cute running around in a field, pecking at insects and occasionally flapping their wings, but those are the happy chickens. Picture five birds stuffed into one cage, cage after cage for what seems like miles of endless chickens all squawking at the same time-these are the angry chickens. The process of taking these angry birds precious little cargoes, called eggs, away from them isn't that simple. I had my first empty flat on top of my cart, ready to be filled with the money making little jewels, and as I reached in for my first strike- BAMM!!!! The little bitch bit me! The cages are designed so that as the eggs are laid, they roll down into a trough on the outside of the cage where the chickens can't get to them. I quickly decided that these were going to be my main targets and the hell with the others that might be stuck within striking range of the vicious little feathered vermin. I made my way along the long, dark, foul smelling isle, carefully plucking the eggs two by two and placing them in the empty holes of my egg flats. As a flat would get full, I would push it to the front of the cart as I had seen my mother do many times. Then when there was no more room to push them forward, I made my way around the cart and carefully stacked them on top of each other as high as I could reach. This is the way it was done, I knew that. I had seen all of the other women doing the same thing over the weeks.
I had my cart full. Egg flats, filled to the brim with what I was seeing as money. Now all I had to do was get my bounty back to the crate room where the final process of my days work would be completed. I didn't manage to get all of my eggs in the second row, but I couldn't reach any higher to stack them. I could see the light at the end of the row only by peeking around my hard earned accomplishments. This was no problem, just straight ahead and I would be there. I trudged along pushing the now very heavy cart, peeking around the sides to see how much further I had to go. Yeah, it's right there, I had done it! I rolled into the crate room, where only my mother was sitting, having finished an hour earlier, but refusing to help me because of the life lessons mothers want to instill in their young. I proudly filled my boxes with the overflowing abundance of my hard work, taking careful notes to write down how many boxes I had filled. Then pushed each one to the loading dock door, where later they would be taken off to god knows where. I signed my name at the bottom of my ticket slip with a big grin on my face, and off we went for home for a well deserved shower.
I took great pride that first day of my first job, knowing that I had done the work of a grown woman. I walked out of that chicken barn with my head held high and a smile on my face, even though I was covered in chicken shit and smelled of the eye burning aroma that only a chicken barn can produce. It was a good walk home beside my mother. I had done my part to help her out, but the biggest part of my smile was knowing I was finally going to get those Nike's I had been dreaming about.
