Not Getting Arrested While Picking Peaches

Have you ever tried picking peaches in the dark? With a flashlight? Without getting arrested? Because it's not your house?

Me neither.

Okay, I'm lying. I totally did this the other night. But it was my dad's house, so I had permission. Big time.

My pops landed himself in the hospital this week. Actually it was his heart that landed him there. Thing is not cooperating. It rarely does. So he will have surgery in a few days to reboot his pacemaker and add some electrodes to his aortic descending valve-ish linear blood vessel vein. Of the heart. Thing. I'm not a doctor. But it's kind of serious, it being the heart and all. 

As a side note: if we lived in the middle ages my dad would not have made it past his forties. His heart is a massive drama queen. Gathers up the cholesterol like a Hoover and slaps it willy nilly against his arteries. And then his blood pressure skyrockets. Plus his heart doesn't beat right. And he's always having stents put in and dietary restrictions imposed that pretty much limit his meals to the boxes the food comes in. But it's all worth it. Because all of that stuff has kept him alive into his late 70's. Pretty amazing, really.

So I visited him in the hospital, and while he was in the ICU, it was clear that his most painful symptom was boredom. BORE. DOM. I mean you can only watch so many episodes of Duct Tape and Me before you start chewing off your pic-lines and trying to make a break for it. So, dad told me stories. Amazing, miraculous, coincidental stories about people having amazing, miraculous, coincidental miracles in their lives. Stuff from way back. Stuff that was possibly slightly drug-induced, judging by the rapid-fire bleary manner in which they came. But it was highly entertaining, and he needed to talk. So he did. For about half an hour straight.

And then as suddenly as it started, it was over. One minute I was listening to the Remarkable Adventure of the Missionary in Santiago Who Wanted to Go To Japan, and the next minute dad was throwing aside his blankets, swinging his legs off the bed, and saying, "Thanks for the visit. I'm going to walk now. Do you want peaches? We have lots on our tree. They're going to die. We don't want them to. Go get them. Right now. Bye." And he was gone.

Well, what are you going to do when your seventygenarian pop tells you from his hospital bed at 9:00 at night that you are to go pick peaches?

I waved goodbye to the orderly, who was looking at me funny for some reason. Like, I really don't know why he was looking at me funny. Maybe I had toilet paper trailing from my shoe. Maybe he thought I was a wimp because clearly I was going to do what my medicated pops ordered and go pick the peaches in the middle of the night. Whatev. I smiled. Then I got into my minivan and drove to dad's. The man was sick, a'ight? In the hospital. The least I could do was not let his peaches die.

When I pulled up to dad's house (after getting lost taking a shortcut. Not like have haven't been there eighteen-bazillion times) I cut the lights quickly. Dad's house was dark, which ment the step-mom had gone to bed–probably exhausted, poor thing. And you know what? Dudes. It was dark. Not only were there no lights in that house, there were no lights on that street. Pitch. Black. And wouldn't you know it? Dad's Peach Tree of Glory was on the pitchiest side of his house, where the moon don't shine. 

*sigh* I should learn to say "Not this time, dear hospitalized father." But I can't. So, I set about looking for a container to hold the peaches, and a flashlight. After sifting through half-dissolved tissues, the Sunday comics, random headsets, running shoes, that one glove, the sippy cup from when our youngest was 3, a pipe cleaner, Fahrenheit 451, an old Jolly Rancher, and some corn nuts, I tracked down one earth-friendly shopping bag and a 45-calibre flashlight with almost no battery left. Perfect.

Then I set off across the grass and on through the gate, trying to pick out landmarks in the dark so I could place my feet like a Navy Seal and not wake the Step Mo. Or the neighbors. Or the neighbor's dog. Because it really did occur to me that I was sort of breaking and entering Dad's backyard. A realization that was heightened by the fact that this was a neighborhood of retirees, and even though it was only about 9:20 at night, they were all in bed. I'm talking lights out, shades drawn, nasal passages snoring. And my pitiful little flashlight was managing to be piercing. AND the next house was directly below my peach tree just off a tiered wall.

Yep. Wall.

Do you know what I had to do to pick those blessed peaches?—And oh baby, there were peaches. Plump, ripe, sunrise-ruby, dropping off the boughs and thudding to the ground like little juicy bowling balls—I had to balance on a very slim retaining wall next to the little patch where this tree was planted. Up on my toes, stretching in to the most succulent fruit on the innermost branches at the highest points. And usually on one leg. All while trying not to shoot the beam of my flashlight into the bedroom of the house below, or be pulled off balance by the bag of fruit swinging from my arm.

Which sort of reminded me of the olympics. Here I was on the balance beam. Except instead of of being young and nubile, I was old and rickety. And in serious danger of falling on my head. No gold medals here, honey. I mean, I used to dance six hours a day. I had epic balance. Could stick one leg up next to my ear, read a book, and blow dry my hair all at the same time.

Yeah. Those days are totally over. It took all of my skills not to fall off that retaining wall into the neighbor's yard, getting mauled by their rottweiler and then arrested by the beat cop patrolling their street in the process.

It was a thing, people. Horrifying. I'd huddle on the sliver of a wall after nearly falling off, breathing and shaking and kind of wanting to swear for the first time in my life. At least out loud. Then I'd reach, reeeeeach, tippy toe, flashlight focused, strain, pluck, almost swear, FLAP FLAP FLAP! ACK! SHHHHH! CRAP! I MEAN CARP! BECAUSE MY YOUNGEST DOESN'T LIKE ME SAYING CRAP AND TOLD ME I HAVE TO SAY CARP INSTEAD. EEEK! I CAN FEEL BUGS LANDING ON MY HEAD BECAUSE I'M HAVING TO STICK MY FACE RIGHT INTO THE LEAVES TO GET THE STUPID FRUIT. I HATE BUGS FALLING ON MY HEAD. THEY'LL PROBABLY LAY EGGS THERE AND TAKE UP RESIDENCE. GROSS. NOW I'M COMPLETELY GROSSED OUT. AND AAAAAAAH! IS THAT THE NEIGHBOR PEERING OUT THE WINDOW? STINK! TURN OFF THE FLASHLIGHT! HURRY AND GET THE PEACHES! DON'T FREAKING FALL OFF THE BLINKING WALL! ACK ACK ACK!

Really, what choice did I have in all of this except to keep going? Sweat beading up and dripping off my nose? Legs shaking? Arms waving? Bag getting heavier and heavier? A heartily sick man in a hospital bed had made his parting wish that I pick his peaches and bottle them for posterity. Dude. Duty calls. I pluck.

Finally I quit and scampered back to my car, accidentally slamming the gate shut with a fence-rattling crash. Then I put pedal to the metal (which makes no sense. What metal? There's no metal on the floor of my car), and blew slowly out of the old-people neighborhood so as not to get a ticket.

When I got home–grinning and glowing with the success of the whole venture–I laid my booty out on the bar, envisioning the golden slices floating in simple syrup in glass canning jars. Remembering that burst of late summer goodness on my tongue–and by booty I mean the peaches I'd gathered, not my, you know booty. This ain't no Beyoncé song. And my booty barely touches the back of my jeans. It ain't gonna to lay out on a bar. You probably didn't need to know that.

Well, guess what? After doing beam-work that Aly Raisman would have been proud of and nearly falling to my death, I had netted a whopping ten peaches. Ten. And they were slightly bruised and somewhat mangled from me flopping them on top of one another, to boot. They weren't going to be good for anything but chopping up and plopping onto a bowl of cornflakes. 

Stink.

I was going to have to go back.

So I will. But this time I'm taking my little offspring. They can balance and pluck while I direct from the sidelines. Then I shall enrich their lives and teach them to bottle peaches. And there will be no swearing.

I mean it.

And my pops? Next year he can pick his own carpy peaches. And I'm not visiting him again until he's out of the hospital.