06E063
It was a perfect summer's day when we
met our friends at the blueberry festival. The eight of us took a charming
hayride out to the field. The bushes were brimming with fat, juicy, sweet
organic berries. There was a feeling of abundance. We picked as much as we
wanted, then rode back to the farmhouse to grab some lunch - smoky barbecue,
delicious blueberry scones, home made chocolate cupcakes. My nine-year-old son
entered the pie-eating contest while we all watched, laughing. After he cleaned
up, he drew a still life with colored pencils and entered it in the art
contest. He won.
Meanwhile, all was not as it
appeared. Bad Betsy had taken up residence within me and was whispering things
like:
Why is that woman near our bush? There won't be enough room for
everyone on the hayride back. What will we do if we're left behind in this
sweltering heat? What if our pals don't make - "Hey you guys, hurry
up." Where's that tractor, anyway, it's been much longer than five
minutes. And, finally: I don't even like blueberries.
Then, as we were about to get onto
the tractor for the ride back (as we did, indeed, all make it on board), I
thought of something to be grateful for. As the crowd collectively muttered
about the lack of seating on the tractor, I said to the woman in front of me in
line, "At least we don't have to worry about ticks."
"Well," she said, and my
eyes grew wide in disbelief. It was a tone of voice I recognized, having used
it thousands of times with my kids. It's the "well" of disappointment,
of disagreement, of the last word. The ominous "well."
"Actually, there are ticks around here. In fact,” she
added casually, “the farmer's wife has Lyme disease."
"You're kidding, right?" I
asked, shocked. "You're not kidding?" Bad Betsy was practically
laughing out loud.
Suddenly I felt itchy. I thought
about how lucky we were to have made it onto the hayride out of this hellhole,
and how glad I was that we were done picking blueberries. Probably forever.