Living for Fish

When my mother was a teenager, she spent her summers in Gloucester, MA. Every year, she worked some kind of job there, usually waiting tables, but sometimes cleaning houses. One year, she packed whiting fish. When the fish were running, she would work a double ship – 16 hours of packing frozen fish.

The heads were already off, but it was her job to scoop out the guts with one hand while lifting the fish into the packing crate with her other. She packed them into ice, and her hands would go numb. She was allowed a few short breaks, and she would sit outside and have an apple while tourists took photographs of this college girl from Cincinnati all covered in fish scales from her summer job.

At the end of the day, fish scales would have dried all over her arms. She wasn’t allowed back in the house where she stayed until after to used the outdoor shower and changed her clothes. Her clothes were not allowed inside either. She had nightmares about the fish scales on her arms slowly causing her to turn into a fish.

Maybe she wasn’t a very good fish-packer. One day her boss yelled at her “If you don’t live for fish, you shouldn’t be there!” She accepted his suggestion and quit.

Yesterday, Saturday, at 10 a.m. work called, literally. They needed some PR questions answered, and I answered them happily. Unlike my mother that summer, I live for fish.