Working with my Mom

A couple weeks ago my Mom called to see if I would like to go to the Lindon cannery with her to can salsa. My Mom can get obsessed with food storage at times. When you go and can, you can buy 6 cases afterward. If I went with my Mom she could buy 12. So I decided to go along with her, to help her out.

I had NO idea what I was getting myself into. In my mind I am seeing a kitchen with a big island, and a bunch of relief society ladies standing around making salsa. BOY was I wrong. It's basically a factory mas producing salsa. Which it should be, I just had no idea. There is an assortment of jobs that you can be assigned. When we walked in, I was a little confused so I was just staring at all of the boiling pots and pipes that carried the salsa. This older gentleman asks me if I have a good back (I was one of 2 under 50, and the other was my Mom...) and I said sure.

He brings me to a huge metal tub and in it was this nasty salsa water. At one point it had been hot water, but by the time I took over it was half water, half salsa. Along with the tub I was gifted 14 rags. The lady who I was replacing, trained me. She said, "Oh you'll be working hard." I would rinse 7 rags, take them to the ladies at the table, wipe up their salsa mess and give them a new rag. I'd take the dirty rags, rinse them in my salsa water and repeat. Basically I did that every 3 minutes for 2.5 hours. Yes, I timed myself as I did it. During my shift they replaced my water, but it was burning hot and it hurt my hands to wring the towels. My Mom felt so bad as all she did was put clean jars on the table for the other ladies to fill.

I'm glad my Mom got her salsa, because I don't know if I can go back anytime soon. If you go to the cannery anytime soon and they ask if you have a good back, say No. Maybe they will let you put the stickers on the bottles of salsa instead. I left with a few blisters, a new appreciation for my job, and a case of salsa that maybe I will eat in a month or two.