I am in Costco on a grocery run with the tiny Daughter when my phone rings. My older brother is a farmer by trade, operating several hours away from The Big City, and has called to cajole a favor out of me.
But the first five minutes are spent with him pretending to be an Australian tourist who has dialed the wrong number (this is a long-time favorite gag of the Older Brother, and the introduction of any phone call from him to me). Finally he gets down to business.
“Just drive to ______ Shipping, Inc. and see if anyone’s around on a Saturday morning. Find out if the chemicals I ordered are sitting on a pallet somewhere. You know, see if maybe you can just put them in your minivan and take them. Tell them you’re my sister, and it’ll be fine.”
Um. What. “What? Well, what chemicals are these again? They’re going in my van? And don’t I need a tracking number or order number or something? I just don’t know about this,” I say, inserting a whiny quality into my voice. I’m doing my best to hint to the Older Brother that I really don’t want to do this thing.
“It’s the potassium blah blah blah, that I mix with the methyl blah blah blah silicate blah blah blah. You know, I have to spray it on that hay like, yesterday! We’ve got rain coming and I need that stuff. I’ll text you the tracking number.” Now, of course he didn’t say ‘blah blah blah’, but I am not a chemist or a farmer, and I’m on my cell phone in Costco at 9 AM on a Saturday. The inevitable crowd surging around me at the meat counter is peppered with people casting sympathetic and knowing glances in my direction. Poor lady. Her brother or somebody is trying to get her to run this really weird farming-related errand. Either that or this woman is planning out an illegal drug run right in front of all of us!! I force a reassuring wink at the onlookers.
“Oooookay, I’ll go see what I can find out.” I weave my cart through the horde to the checkout and make my way to the van, loading groceries and the Daughter. “We’ll just go do one quick thing and then home for lunch,” I tell her.
Sighing as I get into the car, I pull up directions on my GPS. As usual, when a farmer’s crop depends on a shipment of bulk chemicals – and rain is on the horizon – that shipment is languishing indefinitely on a pallet somewhere in The Big City. Eastern Oregon problems, people. I tell ya.
I close my eyes, recalling what the Older Brother had described as a ‘mom-and-pop’ shipping company. I picture a small rundown operation with pallets sitting under an awning. Tumbleweed blows through here and there, clinging to white plastic bags of potassium blah blah blah. Will anyone even be there? I imagine a kind-looking grandpa in coveralls emerging from underneath a delivery truck engine, wiping grease from his hands to help me load the Older Brother’s lost shipment into my trunk. His eyes crinkle cheerfully as he waves me off in a cloud of dust. I can almost hear the Older Brother’s elation on the other end of the phone when I call to inform him, “I got it!”
Okay. This is going to be fine.
Following my phone’s instructions, I head to the outskirts of town. I pass an old gas station, a closed diner, then cow pastures. Reassuringly, there are even tumbleweeds out here.
Abruptly, the road turns to smooth and freshly painted new pavement. A high chain link fence, topped with razor wire, springs up on the left. Huh. Is there a prison or something out here?
“You have arrived at your destination,” chirps my phone. I slow to a stop in front of a remotely controlled double gate adjacent to a security guard-house. The grounds on the other side of the fence are abuzz with employees marching purposely from an office complex to various warehouses and back. Forklifts and trucks zoom around doing what forklifts and trucks do. A thin strip of manicured lawn in front of the fence boasts a very official sign, “_______ Shipping, Inc.” Mom-and-pop?
This is not a prison. This is where I try to get my hands on some chemicals.
A uniformed guard eases out of a lawn chair in front of the gate and saunters over to my car window. “Ma’am? Are you lost?”
“Hello-my-brother-is-a-farmer-and-he-ordered-some-chemicals-for-his-crop-and-they-seem-to-be-stuck-here-and-I-was-wondering-well-he-was-wondering-if-I-could-possibly-just-pick-them-up-here-as-he-really-needs-them!” I spurt out, all in one breath. He tips his head and looks hard at my face. Squirming in my seat, I swallow a large lump in my throat and muster a wide and innocent smile. I consider adding, for credibility, “I’m a pastor’s wife,” but wisely refrain.
“Uh, no. No you may not. Who did you say you are?” He squints into the car, noticing the Daughter, who stares wide-eyed from the back seat. We must look like criminals. I give him my name, my brother’s name, and the tracking number. “There’s just no way this is happening,” he responds.
“Can I talk to someone in there?” Where is the kind grandpa with crinkly eyes emerging from under a lone delivery truck? I crane my neck to get a better view of the main office.
“No. You are not getting in there.” He steps in front of my gaze, hand on the radio at his hip. I sigh. The Daughter sighs. A flash of inspiration hits me.
“What if I work for my brother? What if I am his employee?” I say this with the conviction that the Older Brother would certainly put me on his payroll (at least temporarily) if it meant picking up the potassium blah blah blah. But then I am convicted that this might actually be a white lie, and I am sure the security guard is watching the pulse in my neck like a trained CIA operative. “Well, what I mean is, what if I have worked for him in the past?” Now this is absolutely true. Oh, wait. Is it? I search my memory. “Or actually, I used to work for the business that he now runs, but he didn’t when I worked there. It’s complicated. You know, family stuff,” I trail off. The guard simply blinks at me, and shakes his head.
“Ma’am, for the last time, NO. You have no business here,” he says with finality.
I accept defeat, turn the car around, and pull out onto the highway. In the gas station parking lot down the road, my brother guffaws on the other end of the phone when I call and explain what happened, accusing him of trying to get me arrested. He admits it was a long shot.
The next time he calls me, it is to pretend to be a private security firm that is following up on criminal activity near their client’s shipping terminal. So I guess I really did do him a favor. The Older Brother loves nothing more than new material.
The Type B Mom 