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Tag Archives: persona

1. Rig

In order to be a functional professional tomato slicer

You need a pair of slip-resistant shoes

You need an apron

You need a hairnet (plus a beardnet if your facial hair exceeds 1/8″)

You need six gloves, and each hand must wear a glove sandwich of vinyl glove, mesh-cloth cut-resistant gloves, vinyl glove (nitrile gloves may be used instead of vinyl if there is an allergy)

You need protective sleeves on your arms

A compliant work uniform

A large container to throw tomato scrap in for possible use as salsa ingredients

A sheet tray (layman’s “cookie sheet”) or the lid to an XXL container to rest the hand-operated tomato slicer on that will keep tomato juices and seeds from making a mess on your station’s work surface

Product trays to put the sliced tomatoes in

A roll of 12″ plastic film in a box with a built-in cutter to wrap the tomato trays in

Labels that accurately describe net tomato weight, creation date, use by date, and description (“Sliced Tomatoes”) to affix to the plastic film after wrapping

And you will need two tomato slicers,

One of which is yourself

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2. Ma

I never called my late ma Ma

Nor even called her Mother

But since our time is limited

I call my brother Brother.

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3. Role

Today I have been a sleeper, an alarmist, a driver, an idler, an employee, a tomato slicer, a diner, a puzzle solver, a correspondent, a customer, a distant admirer, a fertilizer manufacturer, and a poet. The last two roles are not mutually exclusive.

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The above photo, taken on my Samsung Galaxy J2 from the spot in my dining area where I eat, watch DVDs on my laptop, meditate, and make most of my drawings (though I own a drawing table, visible in the background of the photo), has all the elements of the Confessions promised by the title of this blog entry. The Backstory comes from the past few years. The Story happened today.

I am a Water-Fetcher. Water is only twenty cents a gallon at the Glacier dispenser near 29th Street and Indian School Road. Merchants at establishments such as Circle K and Fry’s will shamelessly charge five times as much and more for their water. (Tap water is free, but I suspect the water supply in my neighborhood is unhealthy, and it does not taste good.) I do not own a car, so when I need water I take a walk, bottle(s) in tow.

A long time ago I was involved with a woman who suggested I purchase a personal grocery cart. Today I did so, because for a long time i’d wanted a case of San Pellegrino Sparkling Water in glass bottles–a case too heavy to carry. At Ace Hardware they had a grocery cart that required some assembly. I made about eighteen mistakes putting it together, but I prevailed and it works, and its maiden voyage was to the Smart & Final about a qiarter mile west of Sprouts. I got the case of San Pell and other groceries too, well within the 53-pound advised limit, but far far more than I would be able to easily carry.

On the trip home from Smart & Final, a distance of about two-thirds of a mile, I derided myself for the snobbishness that compelled me to think of myself as old and unsuccessful, merely by virtue of the fact that I was using a grocery cart, and it contained bags with the Smart & Final logo on it. Further reflection revealed that I was proud when my groceries were in Sprouts bags, indifferent with Fry’s bags, oddly prideful with Food City bags, since my ethnicity takes me out of my comfort zone when I shop there (it also blows my mind that there is an entire aisle devoted to Lard), and deeply ashamed when I sport Wal-Mart bags. It would appear that i am not the egalitarian that I purport to be. And that is humbling, but humility is a healthy thing, and so is laughing at my own foibles. 🙂