Carl, the guy who regularly
mows my lawn, and I have a system. When my grass gets long enough to conceal
squirrels, I call his number, leave a message for him, and he shows up with
this big turbo tractor-like mower the next morning.
The
Sunday before my neighborhood’s big house-to-house yard sale on May 28, in
which I was participating, I noticed two disturbing things: my lawn seemed to
have shot up to nearly my shins overnight, and ticks were arriving by the
busloads to inhabit it.
Visions
of sandal-wearing people coming to my yard sale, walking across the lawn and
emerging with so many ticks on their feet and ankles, they’d look as if they
were wearing flesh-colored socks with black polka-dots on them, prompted me to
call Carl and tell him I wanted my front lawn cut nice and short before the
holiday weekend. But when I called, I received a busy signal.
So
I kept trying…and trying…and trying again, and the busy signal continued. Three
days later, and three days closer to my yard sale, the busy signal still
persisted. There was no way, I thought, anyone could be talking on the phone
for three days straight – not even someone as long-winded as I am. And even if
Carl were having a Guinness-record type of conversation, why, I wondered,
wouldn’t my call still be transferred to his voice mail so I could leave a
message?
I
decided something had to be wrong. So out of desperation, I did something I
hadn’t done in years – I dialed “0” for operator. I had no clue if telephone
operators even still existed, so I was surprised when I actually ended up
talking to a human.
“I’ve
been trying to call a number for the past three days and the line has been
busy,” I told her. “Do you know if it’s out of order?”
She
said if it was in New Hampshire number, she could try it for me. I gave it to
her and she asked me to hold, then she returned and told me there was something
wrong with the circuit. She said Carl would have to report it to the repair
service to resolve the problem.
I
hung up feeling defeated and wondering why Carl hadn’t noticed no one had
called him for three days.
Meanwhile,
my lawn and the ticks continued to grow until I could have sworn I heard
Tarzan’s famous jungle call coming from the yard one night. Panic began to set
in as Carl’s number continued to be busy. So I finally made a dangerous and
desperate decision…I decided to try to tackle the lawn myself.
I
have two lawnmowers – a battery-operated one and an electric one – each of
which has its drawbacks. The battery in the battery-operated one weighs over 30
lbs., so it makes pushing the mower about as easy as pushing a VW Beetle around
the lawn. Also, charging the battery takes hours, and I hadn’t charged it since
there were only 49 states.
Then
the electric mower requires an extension cord, and the longer the better. The
cord then will, in the course of one mowing, get under the wheels of the mower,
wrap around every tree, pole and bush it comes near, tangle into a replica of
the Boy Scouts’ guide to knot-tying, and ultimately unplug itself from the
electrical outlet no fewer than 1,323 times.
I
didn’t have time to waste charging the battery, so I opted to use the electric
mower. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find
my 100-ft. extension cord, so I had to link three shorter ones together.
It
took me over three hours to finish mowing. One of those hours was spent
untangling and re-connecting the extension cords that kept pulling apart, and
another was spent swatting at swarms of black flies and mosquitoes. My vision
of having a neatly cropped lawn caused me to set the mower on its lowest
setting, causing clumps of grass and dirt to go flying everywhere.
I
managed to transform my lush, green lawn into something short and brownish with
bald spots. But on the plus side, I was pretty sure the mower had acted like a
guillotine and decapitated thousands of nasty ticks.
I
wasn’t, however, about to tackle the back yard (a.k.a., the rainforest) where
the grass was thicker and longer, so I tried calling Carl one more time. My
mouth fell open when I didn’t hear the annoying busy signal and instead was
prompted to leave a message. I did, telling him the back lawn needed mowing.
Carl
showed up the next day. The first thing he did was stare at my nearly bald
front lawn and ask, “Have you been cheating on me?”
I
laughed and told him I’d cut it myself.
“Not
bad,” he said, obviously being polite. “But just a little too short.”
I
asked him about his phone being busy all week and he said he hadn’t really
noticed because he’d still been able to make calls. But a couple people finally
told him they’d been receiving busy signals. He said by then, however, the
problem somehow had resolved itself.
So
everything ended up looking good for my yard sale.
And
one of the first things I sold was my battery-operated lawnmower – for $50.
# # #
 |
Historical romance trilogy set in 1600s New England. The first book currently is free! CLICK HERE TO ORDER https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/384106 |
No comments:
Post a Comment