The Lobster

         The Artesian Well was an amazing setup.  An artesian well is a well that has enough pressure to flow freely once it is unleashed.  The well ran freely for many years, until Salt River Project built a coal powered generating station in the area.  Power plants need water, so they tapped the large water supply and proceeded to drain the water table.  The Artesian stopped flowing, as did many springs in the area.  This problem was soon fixed however with one scary word—lawsuit.

          Earl won.

          SRP had to put in electric pumps, electric lines, and pipes.  They also had to maintain the affected wells, pay the electric bill, and fix any problems until the second coming.

          Whether or not it was needed, the well was always on, all 800 gallons per minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  Earl’s way of getting back at the big corporation scumbags.  The water was used for an elaborate irrigation system of ditches and ponds.  During the growing season, we would pseudo-irrigate the pastureland.  The water in ditches was dammed up using sticks, plastic, and paper feedbags, and lots of slimy mud.  We would spend hours walking the ditches, trying with little success to get the water to flood a very large tract of land.  During the summer, this job was dusty, hot, and downright miserable.

         One day, I was the chosen one.  It must have been 120 degrees with not a cloud in the sky.  No breeze and no comfort.  My brother Justin once said that any temperature above 100 degrees doesn’t get any hotter.  It just kills you faster.  I agree completely.  I decided that I could woo the women much better if my tan was a shade darker than eggshell white.  So I took off my shirt and went to work like the farm-boy I definitely wasn’t.  I swear I only left my shirt off for 30 minutes, but it could have been longer.  I have a nasty habit of losing or breaking watches.  I put my shirt back on, satisfied that I would be the spitting image of David Hasselhoff the next day, my copper tan attracting all the Baywatch girls to my waiting arms.  That was the idea, anyway.  The reality came later that evening when it was time for bed.  I literally peeled my shirt off my back.  I was hurting so bad I could hardly move.  I showed my mom my back, and I swear her heart skipped a beat.  I spent the next three days lying on my stomach while Mom placed cold wet towels across my back and layered a whole desert’s worth of Aloe Vera on my poor back.  The tan never came, neither did Pamela Anderson and the Baywatch girls.  My burn peeled off to reveal a nice eggshell white “moon-tan”.  I decided then and there that it was only in movies where the hunk worked all day in the fields with no shirt.  No sane man would ever do that in real life.  Only stupid human lobsters.