ewwwww. March 31st, Entry #66.

Sara: So, a few weeks ago we went to Harvester's.  I enjoy going to Harvester's and taking kiddos because you just never know what you're going to do.  I can honestly say that I have never done the same thing twice.  On this lost of jobs we can include: sorting and boxing personal hygiene products, bagging loose pasta, sorting and bagging frozen sausage patties, boxing loaves of bread, sorting canned goods, taking sorted canned goods and boxing them up and packing backpacks with food for kids. 

But this last time we went, this might have been the doozie...we had to go through boxes and boxes and pallets of strawberries.  We had to look through each clear, plastic box of strawberries and pull out any of the rotten and moldy ones.  No joke. Awesome.  We found some NASTY things in these boxes.

And it was such a shame, because man, I LOVE strawberries, but this did not make me want to eat them for a looooooonnnnnnnggggg time.  And just when we finished, and we hoped we wouldn't have to look at any more rotten fruit....guess what??....we got more!  Of course.  But now we graduated from strawberries to random assortments of fruits and vegetables.  Peppers, green beans, lettuce, grapes.  And the grapes, those grapes....I still have a hard time eating grapes after this escapade.

They may not seem that bad from the picture, but imagine this....giant boxes of mostly moldy, squishy, discolored, smelly grapes.  And we got to sort through them one by one and throw out the bad ones.  It's like a never ending nightmare.  Even when you have thrown away half the box you can't even tell because there are still so many grapes in the box.  One by one by one by one.....I think this might be what purgatory is like.

BUT, I must say, the best part of this whole experience was the kiddos.  18 high schoolers got up early on a Saturday morning to do community service that involved sorting through rotten produce, and while we all laughed and shrieked a little at the nastiness,  no one complained.  Not a single one.  When they finished a box they just went and got another one.  They worked hard until everything was done.  As always, whether they realize it or not, I look up to them more than they can ever look up to me.