In the sweltering heat, I volunteered to be a "food wrapper" at my daughter's swim meet. I dutifully checked in at the stand with the head wrapper, an eighth grader named Tory, who sent me on my way until the hamburgers were ready to come off of the grill. I waited to prove my community commitment and utility as a swim team mom.
Tory was a hard-core wrapper with no time for mommys' rapping about fates of the children. She directed the moms to position the tinfoil just right and not smush the burgers. The tension was rising, like the heat as the hamburgers feverishly made their way off of the grill into the plastic covered hands of mothers.
"What's that?" Tory barked, interrupting our assembly of hamburger rolling to single out one of my burgers I had wrapped. "It's a hamburger," I said. "Here, take it if you can do it better." I felt my blood boiling in this hamburger sweat shop as my perspiration tried to refrain from becoming a salty condiment on the burgers. She later passive-aggressively directed me to reposition the pan, so I gave it to her and told her I would follow her very capable, pompous lead. Note: I didn't say it quite like that.
Eventually rained out, I tried to make a recovery by showing that I could now wrap hamburgers like Christmas presents and volunteer for the rescheduled meet the next day. "No. I think we will be okay," said Tory.
Wrapping was not my bag, and I had much more skill and fun listening to a fellow wrapper, distraught over her son's intense relationship at the ripe age of eighteen. We will likely be acquaintances long beyond the hamburger stand while Tory still buries her head in burgers.
Dedicated to Tory, whom I hope will lighten up.
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