I can't believe I let my dad talk me into picking BlackBerries. It was an uncomfortable experience. He wanted to ride bikes, except it turns out it wasn't a bike path, it was a narrow trail made of gravel and cracked dirt, overgrown with thistles and other prickly weeds that probably punctured my tires or something. And then the actual picking of the BlackBerries was little more than menial labor. Like I volunteered to do illegal immigrant work. The bushes were, of course, full of thorns, and surrounded by tall grass that was probably infested with ticks or something.

The goal, ostensibly, was to make BlackBerry Pie. For some reason. I suppose that's all well and good, but I'm not totally sure it was worth the effort.

You might think it's cool to be able to pluck BlackBerries right off of a bush, but it's not as great as it sounds. Most of them are obsolete models. (Oftentimes you can't tell until you try to pluck them.) Also, they don't come with batteries, and it's not like you can chuck a pair of AAs in there.