Dear Neighborhood Beautification Society:
Four years ago we purchased our current home. It had an in-ground pool, and we were essentially stealing the property from the poor retired veteran who threw in a home warranty to sweeten the deal. That’s really all we knew about the house.
Fast forward to, well, yesterday. As we pulled out of the driveway, The Dad said, without any provocation at all, “I really hate your pumpkins.”
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| It's the great (dry & dying) pumpkin, Charlie Brown! |
See, every fall, when the in-ground pool is closed for the season, I purchase no less than a gross of pumpkins (OK – maybe a few dozen less than a gross) and I set them out in the front flower beds in the hopes that the neighborhood hoodlums don’t steal them.
And if they do, I replace them because I bought a half gross of pumpkins and I could do that! Then, when Halloween is just a memory and Thanksgiving is nothing but pumpkin pie crumbs on my kitchen floor, I forget about the pumpkins and they set in the flowerbeds all winter, slowly but surely decaying into the ground from whence they came. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Or not. In the spring, I always hope that the now decomposed pumpkins will take root and I will have my own little pumpkin patch. This year, my friends, I’m proud to say that we have lift off! The pumpkins have taken hold in one of the front flowerbeds and I have blooms – and one little gourd! Let’s all stop, hold hands and sing “Circle of Life”!
It’s not like The Dad never does anything with the flowerbeds anyway. And I think the pumpkin plant looks great! And it takes very little work. And that’s really the point here, right?
I digress…
So, The Dad said, “I really hate your pumpkins.”
I snarled my lip at him and said, “Well, I love them. Besides, this is the first year they’ve really taken off and you’ve never done anything with the flower beds.”
“Why should I do anything with the flowerbeds? You said you wanted to do the flowerbeds.” He countered.
Then, what he should have done was admitted that he just told a bold-faced lie.
Then, what he should have done was admitted that he just told a bold-faced lie.
I HATE doing anything with flowers or gardening or green thumbs. In fact, the whole stick a pumpkin in a flowerbed until it rots? That’s a stroke of genius in my gardening guide! To be perfectly honest, it’s almost too much work to go out there and water the vine every three to four days.
I have NEVER done anything remotely agricultural in my life! I do, however, frequent the farmer’s market where I typically buy nothing because it’s all kinda dirty if you ask me.
Looking at The Dad through half-closed, fully appalled eyes: “Excuse me? When did I say this? Because I never said this!” I argued back with the clearest sense of clarity that only a clearly speaking lawyer would possess.
“You said this when we moved in. You said that I would be in charge of the lawn and you would be in charge of the flower beds.” Then he glanced at me wide-eyed and ever so slightly shook his head in the international gesture meaning “so there.”
And I, in the international gesture of maturity said, “Liar, liar pants on fire! I would never say that because I love to mow and I hate to garden!”
“Well,” The Dad said, “I hate to garden. What do we do now?”
“I planted pumpkins. I’ve obviously taken care of one flower bed for you.” I quipped. “You’re welcome, Mister I-only-do-lawns.”
“Well, maybe you need to plant pumpkins all over then. But, I still hate them. Makes us look like a tobacco farm!” Only he pronounced it like this: tobacky – as if he were channeling my daddy who really was raised on a tobacky and dairy farm in Virginia.
I found this to be hysterical, so I burst out laughing. For starters, I seriously wonder which neighbors think we’re going to grow and dry our own tobacky? And are we really going to turn a profit if we only grow it in the three-foot by 12-foot lot of that particular flowerbed? (Because if anyone out there thinks we could turn a profit doing that and it’s somewhat easy to grow, we might consider it. We are in a recession, ya know!)
So, with his giggling wife sitting next to him, The Dad drove on to our errand and then we returned home. As I got out of his SUV, he said, “The lawn needs mowed.”
And I said, “Then mow it.”
And he said, “You said YOU were in charge of mowing.”
And I said, “But, I just planted pumpkins! Can I be expected to handle everything that happens outside?”
And he said, “Yes.”
And I said, “Yeah, right!”
So, that, Neighborhood Beautification Society, is how The Dad and I arrived at the idea of just going all natural with our lawn and gardens. That’s right, the 6 inch high grass and the 42-dozen dandelions in our gardens are our way of letting Mother Nature have her way with our lawn.
But come October, y’all come help yourself to our pumpkins… if they survive that long!
Sincerely,
Your Nature-lovin’ Neighbors
