Avacadoes

Here's what happened. Every day, we are supposed to look at the chart, to see what job we have the following day. I could not make out what it said next to my name that day. All I could make out was 5:30 AM. (That's fairly normal around here.) I asked around. Can you read this? My answers would be pretty much equitable to if I asked out girls to the Prom. So, anyway, I am at dinner, and Devora says, "Oh, Michael, by the way, your boss came by. He said to be outside the , ��� ����." (Chadar Ochel) {Cafeteria}

"Did he say what I was doing?" Prom answer again.

The next day, I finally find out. I arrive on time to the dump, and am pointed to a car. We drove for quite a while. As I recall, we passed Haifa. We finally ended up in Masada. Not the mountain, apparently, there are two Masadas. The other one is a Kibbutz community.

Here's what we did. We counted avocados. That's all we did. We went to every tree with these little counters in our hand that jumped up one with the flexing of the thumb. There were two people per tree. Both counted the avocados. If their results were within 10% of each other, then the results were considered accurate, and the couple moved on to the next tree.

The whole point of this it seems, was actually a part of an international study of bumble bees, which my Kibbutz manufactures. This international entomological\agricultural experiment was to help determine the international value of bumble bees, as a commodity.

Allow me to explain. As you probably know, honey bees have two very useful aspects to kibbutzes. First, of course, is that they can sell the honey, and second is that the bees pollinate the plants, so that the produce can grow. Naturally. But the problem with the latter is that honey bees are picky eaters. Well, no different from us really, they want sugar. So, if a beehive is placed near an avocado grove to pollinate it, but one of the drones discovers a citrus tree nearby, it will tell the other bees, and then the avocado trees will go unpollinated.

Fortunately, bumble bees are not so far on the evolutionary chain. They will generally pollinate whatever crap is placed in front of them. This is why my kibbutz manufactures them; so that less sugary fruits can be pollinated more easily. Thus the experiment- the kibbutz needed data to show its potential buyers.

Nine times out of ten I finished before my partner did. He was in charge of this entire project, so he was less willing to fudge the data. Thus it took us a lot longer to work. In the period where we would count and recount the trees, until our numbers were similar, you could overhear the other workers in conversations like this.

(In Hebrew of course.) "How many did you get?"

"217, you?"

"Oh, uhmm, 283."

"Yep, that's what I meant." Meanwhile, my partner cared, and rightly so I suppose. So we took longer. The trees could have anywhere from none, to... our highest was... uhmm 617 avocados on one tree. I guess it was fun, I got to climb trees, and go to another part of the country, getting a tour along the way, It was probably one of the better jobs I've had. And it was important...

Get me outa here!!!

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Take me back to the list

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Michael Kadish
"If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em." - Harry S Truman

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