Thursday, May 12, 2011

The Yard Guy

I'm not a yard guy.

We have guys in our neighborhood who enjoy nothing more than mowing their lawn on the weekends, then painstakingly edging to an accuracy of 1/32 of an inch. They can talk to you for an hour about fertilizer mix, watering patterns, and different types of grass.

I am not that guy.

I can mow a lawn without putting my eye out, generally. Beyond that, though, all bets are off.

Which brings us to the subject of bushes.

We have eight bushes that run along our sidewalk. Conceptually, each bush is supposed to be round, and separate, and about the size of one of those big exercise balls that people like to fall off.

Over the years, though, they've become larger and more unruly, no longer distinct, just fused together into one gigantic, nation-sized mass.

On Mother's Day, Gloria and Eli 9.9 were out painting pottery, and I decided it was time to trim the bushes.

We have an electric hedge trimmer, and for the last several years, my efforts in this area have followed an entirely predictable pattern: trim for a while, make considerable progress, then accidentally cut the extension cord. Trimming over.

It doesn't matter how I attach the extension cord. No, it matters not a whit, because somehow, I will find a way to sever it.

This time, though, I made an enormous amount of progress, even separating each bush from its brethren, before I saw a sudden spark, looked down, and saw that the electrical cord was no more.

Oh, well, I thought. Time to go inside.

I did trim for a few minutes more with a manual hedge trimmer--barbaric, although pleasantly quiet--and I thought everything was looking much better when I stopped.

About an hour later, Gloria and Eli returned.

"The bushes look great!" Gloria said. "I can't believe how much better they look. Thank you for doing that."

"You're welcome," I said. "Oh, and the next time you go to the store, we need a new extension cord."

"Already on the list," she said.

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