The Perfect Load - Nez

 The Perfect Load

By Nez Nesmith

He stood almost twenty feet in the air atop the load admiring his work when it occurred to him that now they had to tear it all apart. He was proud of himself. He could have stacked them higher, but the ground crew couldn’t throw them any higher. He stacked them like bricks, overlapping each and turning them at the corners so every single bale was squarely interlocked with another. This load was straight and rock-solid, no strapping needed for the drive to the barn. 

At the barn hayhooks will lift and swing a quartet of bales up into the hayloft where two guys will restack them, but not interlock. He didn’t want to work in the loft, it was too stuffy and hot up there. He would much rather work outside in the sunny breeze, setting the hooks. Besides he had already stacked them once, perfectly. That was enough. Stuffy and hot in that dust up there, no thank you. Let someone else do that. Staying with the truck and setting the hooks would be his reward for stacking the perfect load. 

Still, he was a little dejected that his perfection would disappear. He wondered if any of the other guys had stacked a truckload as perfectly. He thought not. They weren’t the perfectionists he was. Well, maybe not everything he did was perfect, but at least some things were. And this load was perfect. 

“Hey,” yelled the driver, “you can’t ride up there. You have to come down.” Smiling to himself, he knew that. He scrambled down to the ground and joined the others. “Let’s go,” he grinned. 

Nez Nesmith

September 2023