A Chilean Vineyard

a Chilean vineyard

I do not abolish the dirt; I make it nomadic using dirty mop tentacles. As I am doing this, an elderly woman on a mission approaches me.

“Sir?” she asks with a tenor of condescension. “Where do these grapes come from?”

“Um…” I am always a little stunned by this type of question. “Chile, I think. But let me check.”

Before I can make for the back room, she pulls on my arm, and her eyes shift back and forth as if she is about to impart some privileged information.

“Because in other countries, they often urinate on their crops for irrigation.”

Shocked and without retort, I finally close my gaping jaw and bolt to the sanctuary of the back room.

“Be right back,” I mumble almost inaudibly. I imagine a chorus line of Chilean men peeing on beautiful vines laden with grapes and giggle uncontrollably. “¡Más agua para las trabajadores, por favor!” No one is around to laugh about this with me. “Is this real?” I think to myself. I remember the blue agave fields in Mexico and the verdant cauliflower valley in Colombia with the spindly arms of irrigation reaching across their expanse, and I begin to get angry. “They irrigate their crops the same they do anywhere else,” I think, incredulously.

“Yeah, Chile,” I tell her. She doesn’t say another word, and she passes the beautiful green and red grapes by, afraid of the invasive bouquet of urine ruining their heavenly taste. I probably should have divested her of her belief, but I thought, “No, go ahead and keep living in this delusional world you’ve created.”