Fergus in the Greenhouse
Now, you have to understand that most of the greenhouse work was done at winter time so we could have our plants ready for spring sales. The snow would be deep, the wind would be cold and blustery and ice would be everywhere. Fergus hated snow and cold with a passion and he used to freeze all winter long.
He'd wear the small sweater my mother knit for him - the one with Fergus on the back all spelled out in tiny letters and he'd look like some crotchedly old Frog man in it. Come to think of it, he was an old crotchedly old Frog man. And he hated being cold.
So he loved to come to the warm greenhouse. The sun would be shining and he'd stretch out on one of the heating pipes and toast away, getting sunburned all over (I don't think I can tell you the places he used to get sunburned but let's just say you don't want to have those places sunburned cause you can't sit down very easily) But Fergus wouldn't care. He'd pretend it was summer and stretch out.
Every now and then he'd wake up, turn over and go back to sleep. This would go on most of the day and he'd call it his "coffee break" because he expected to work hard at some point during the day.
Well. One day after a long day moving tiny plants into the plastic pots that they were going to grow up in and be sold, I discovered that I had run out of tags for them. There was a bundle of tags spilled under one of the benches and no other tags in the greenhouse. You can't sell a plant without a little tag or nobody would know what it was. I mean, would you know the difference between a cabbage plant and a broccoli plant? Would you know the difference between a big red tomato plant and a little red tomato plant when it didn't have tomatoes on it? Me neither but between you and me it wouldn't make much difference because I don't want to eat either of them.
But some people like to eat cabbage and broccoli and they want little tags in their plants so they can tell them apart. Some people wanted big red tomatoes and some people want little red tomatoes and they want tags so they can tell them apart.
I called to Fergus and told him that I needed him to crawl under the bench and get me a bunch of tags that had spilled all over the floor.
Well, you thought I had asked him to do the dishes the way he grumbled and moaned. I know how that grumble sounds because that's the same grumble I use when my mother used to make me do the dishes. Don't you guys grumble when your mom has you clean up and do the dishes? Yeah. Well, that's the sound Fergus was making.
I yelled at him and told him I wouldn't bring him out here anymore unless he got off his backside and crawled under that bench to get me the tags. I wanted tags! And BRING ME THE TAGS FERGUS!
Yes, I was grumpy and tired and I had had enough of Fergus lying sleeping while I worked.
Fergus jumped! Crawled under the bench and yelled to know if I wanted all the tags.
I yelled back "YES!"
So Fergus collected tags and we kept putting the small plants into the pots and stacking them up getting ready for the tags.
And Fergus came through for me with a massive paper bag of tags.
Wait a minute.
There was only one bundle of tags under that bench, how did Fergus get an entire paper bag of tags?
FERGUS!!!!
That frog had not only climbed under the bench to get the tags, he had climbed on top of the bench to get the tags and had taken all the tags out of the plants we had already moved.
He took the tags out of the broccoli and put them in the paper bag.
He took the tags out of the cabbage and put them in the paper bag.
He took the tags out of the big red tomato plants and put them in the paper bag.
He took the tags out of the little red tomato plants and put them in the paper bag.
And then he mixed them all together so all the tags were jumbled and mixed up.
Nobody could tell the cabbage plants from the broccoli plants. Not me. Not the rest of the people helping me. Not Fergus (certainly not Fergus)
Nobody could tell the big red tomato plants from the small red tomato plants. Not me. Not the rest of the people in the greenhouse.
Fergus wanted to know when he was going to get paid.
Oh I paid him back for sure.
I paid him back.
But that's a subject for another story sometime.
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