Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 134
Beware of plants that attack
Editor’s note: World affairs such
as they are, Jim Walker found himself taking things seriously this
week. We gave him some time off to
adjust his perspective. Below is one
of our favorite “Don’t take me seriously” columns, this one from April
2009. After all, we know the recent
warm spell has you gardeners out
there thinking about the dangerous
season.
“These are the times that try
men’s souls.” — Thomas Paine
T
he tomato plants killed Vito
Corleone.
I’m here to tell you.
Forget that he was old. Forget that
little brat was spraying insecticide
in his face.
I mean, the man had survived being riddled with bullets. Age and
chemicals wouldn’t do it.
Don Vito Corleone, “the Godfather,” had a heart attack because he
was working in the tomato garden
— i.e. gardening, ipso facto doing
yard work, ergo putting his life, and
his sanity, on the line.
Boys, it’s springtime. The plants
are out to get you. And the deed will
be done in your own yard.
You know, unless you have a gardener.
It’s Sunday, April 26, 2009, and
you are planning on going to the
Cowboy Festival. You wake up to a
cool day, feeling great, and go outside to collect your Signal from the
driveway. Birds are chirping and
you think you hear “Oh What a
Beautiful Morning” in the air.
Then the overgrown hedge branch
slaps you in the eye.
You stagger off the sidewalk and
fall to your knees in 6-inch grass.
You’d swear that, just yesterday,
the lawn was neatly trimmed and
the hedges behaving. Somehow,
overnight, your yard has turned into
a threatening jungle.
The lawn, of course, could be
your own fault. As a lifelong masochist, you fertilized it a couple
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
weeks ago. And, “Oh surprise!” it’s
grown long and thick — and mean.
And the hedges? Well, they swell
like this every spring. But they always wait until you have something
planned before they really stretch
out and wave at your neighbors,
“Hey, lookie here, this guy is a lazy
homeowner!”
Passive aggressive, at the least.
Then there are the dandelions. You got tired of seeing their
fuzzy heads popping up from your
grass and put a little anti-dande on
the lawn when you fertilized. Yet,
somehow, the dandelions haven’t
gotten the hint.
In fact, you just made them angry.
If you stand really still and watch
for a moment, you can actually see
their sneering yellow flowers popping up like periscopes and watching you in return — waiting for revenge.
Dandelions are nasty, and people have known it for centuries. In
fact, they got their name from the
Old French, “Dent-de-lion,” which
means lion’s tooth. Now, one tooth
is not so much to worry about. But
your lawn has a lot of teeth.
So you get up out of the grass really fast.
You pick up your paper and take
a good look around. The hedges are
blocking your house number, but
you aren’t expecting company, so
that’s no problem. However, if you
squint just a little bit, the holistic
view of your homestead is that your
landscaping is overgrowing your
house like fairytale ivy — and soon
your home will disappear into the
green eternity.
Then a sparrow flitters into a
hedge, and it doesn’t come out. And
you’d swear you can hear chewing.
You wonder if it is time to do
some yard work. However, the Cowboy Festival is calling. You can put
it off for another week, right?
But then you hear it, shouted from
across the street.
“Hey neighbor, looks like things
are really ‘healthy’ in your yard!”
Busted, you know you’ll spend
the day at war with the plants.
Two hours later, after coffee and
breakfast and television — and
sticking needles in your eyes —
anything to avoid the yard, you
clatter to the battle line with your
troops.
Two-cycle lawnmower: Dull
blade and barely operating. Once
it’s running you don’t dare turn it
off for more than 10 seconds or you
won’t get it started again until it
cools. But you’ll address these problems, you know, next week.
Electric hedge trimmer: Dull but
still working, as long as you keep
the WD-40 handy. While “dull”
struggles with the hedges, it did
help you keep a finger that one
time. However, the outdoor extension cord has a lot of taped-up fixes
(where you accidentally cut it) and
it loses juice every now and then.
“Come on baby, just hang in there
one more week.”
Two-cycle trimmer: Except for
the fact you have to stop down and
rewind the trim-cord every five
minutes, this works well — too
well, judging by the way your lawn
is shrinking-in from the edges.
Six-pack of motivation: What
needs to be said? You are at war.
You line up your troops and address them like Mel did in “Braveheart.” “Aye, ye can run. But weeks
later, when yer home, sleeping in
yer beds.”
But you’re really just trying to
screw up your own courage. You
consider mooning the enemy, like in
the movie, but remember you have a
homeowners association.
Unfortunately, by this time, your
motivation division already has two
dead soldiers, and the battle hasn’t
even started.
As you wipe your lips with the
back of your hand, a third soldier
helps you pour out a little for the
homies that have gone before.
Eight hours later. ...
Gardening historians will one day
write about your epic battle. In fact,
it was so “epic” folks around the
world watched it on Google Earth.
And it will live forever on YouTube
under the title of “Least Competent
Gardeners.”
The battle was back-and-forth,
and was in doubt several times. And
thank God another motivation division arrived in the late hours of the
struggle.
And thus, you won.
As the sun sets on your weekend, you apply the last bandages and
drop, exhausted, into your couch.
You were going to barbecue steaks,
but don’t even have the energy to
microwave a hot dog now.
But it’s a “good” tired, right? You
won the battle. While you know
you’ll have to struggle to wheel the
500 pounds of green waste to the
curb on Wednesday, that’s Wednesday’s problem.
You are momentarily content.
But the problem is, like in “Braveheart,” the enemy will come back.
In fact, you can hear the grass growing now.
You only won a battle, not the
war. And your troops are held together with duct tape and coat hangers. You, yourself, have taken a
beating. (Were those heart palpitations you felt in the afternoon?)
But you will fight on through
summer, waiting for blessed cold
weather, when the enemy goes to
sleep.
So remember Don Corleone,
boys. It’s springtime. Watch your
backs.
Jim Walker can be reached at
jwalker@the-signal.com. His opinions are his own, and not necessarily those of The Signal.
