Something to Blog About

Lance and I have been serving in the nursery almost as long as we've been married. As a result, neither of us has been to any adult Sunday meetings in almost nine months. Now that I am involved with the Young Women organization and Lance continues as the ward Executive Secretary, we've finally graduated to attending classes where full and complete sentences are the norm. Having Lance return to Elder's Quorum meetings has produced an interesting effect, however. Namely, that he likes to volunteer for everything.

This is not a bad thing. I just find it kind of amusing. And, since Lance signed himself up to help out at the Church-run cannery in Lindon this morning, I decided to come along rather than feel bored and guilty at home, and it proved to be quite an, um, memorable experience.

After washing our hands and donning our plastic aprons and hairnets, we were given a little orientation about safety. There were illustrations to match-- a stick figure straining his back from lifting incorrectly, a pipe blowing hot steam, and hand with four fingers chopped off. We both giggled a little at that last one-- it was quite detailed. Oh, the irony.

Today's fare was pork and beans. The cans came down on a conveyor belt and passed the pork guys (Lance included) who made sure each can got a glob of ground bacon at the bottom. Meanwhile, the beans were washed in the hopper and also took a trip up a conveyor belt, which then dumped them into the machine which filled the cans. The belt under this machine shook wildly back and forth so that the cans filled up evenly. My job came next. The cans then passed under a juice fountain, where they were filled to the brim with a thin sort of tomato sauce before the lids were sealed on. I was to make sure the cans were full, and to keep stray pork and bean bits from clogging up the grate underneath, where the excess juice ran off. It meant that for about three hours I was splattered with hot juice while I stood in a breeze of pure steam. Man, I was so sticky afterward that if you had thrown me on a wall I probably would have stuck to it just like velcro! Although tedious and incredibly noisy, it was neat to watch how the machinery worked and to know that our efforts would bless countless numbers of people.

There were a couple of other jobs as well, including putting the cans in the giant steamer, and then packaging the finished cans into boxes. Then there was the brother behind me who was stuffing bacon into the meat grinder. Can you tell where this story is going?

Everything was fine until I heard the poor guy trying to yell over the tumultuous noise, "It got my finger! It got my finger!" He was clutching his hand tightly and looking desperate. The missionaries rushed him out of the processing area to the hand washing basin and stuck his hand into a pitcher full of ice-- you know, those same clear plastic pitchers they have in every chapel across the country. I turned around and indeed, there at the end where the ground meat came out, I could see the tip of a blue gloved finger amid the greasy chunks of bacon. They took the machine apart to remove it and put it into ice as well.

The police came and while everyone waited for the ambulance, I noticed Lance sit down on some nearby stairs. I went over to talk to him when he rather abruptly got up, ripped off his apron, and disappeared. Turns out the whole ordeal made him rather queasy! Although neither of us really saw any blood or guts, the idea enough was sufficient to make one nauseous. I myself had to concentrate hard not to notice how red the sauce was, and what the dried chunks on my gloves looked like. Lance had to pass the poor guy leaning over the basin in order to make it to the bathroom and almost passed out on the floor. As soon as he thought he was well he came back to man his post, tossing in the greasy, slimy bacon bits... you can guess how helpful that was. He ripped off his second apron and went to lay down in the waiting room until the shift ended, which was about 15 minutes later.

My heart aches for that poor brother. Fortunately at least his finger didn't actually get caught in the actual grinding machinery, where I'm sure it could have yanked in his whole hand. He was pulling out the ground meat at the end and stuck his finger in a little too far, where it got neatly chopped off right below the fingernail by the last rotating blades. The senior missionary next me me leaned over after the ordeal and said, "Well, this is certainly the worst day I've ever had here!" They've had plenty of minor cuts, scrapes, and burns, but no severed appendages. I guess we picked the lucky day to volunteer.

I hope the poor guy is alright. While Lance was outside getting the color back into his face, he heard the man say he had also just lost his job. A trip to the emergency room probably won't help his financial situation. Since we didn't really know him, I don't know how the story ended. We just prayed and hoped, and tried not to barf in the beans.

After our shift was over (and the new girls coming in had pretty wide eyes, having just witnessed the injured man making his way to the ambulance), we were allowed to buy some of the goods we canned for our food storage supply. We bought a case of pork and beans, ohne finger-- although I don't think I'll be able to eat it anytime in the near future.