Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Only YOU can prevent yard fires!

This morning we were awoken at 6 am to someone from down the street banging on the door yelling "Neighbor! Neighbor!" (That goes to show us that we should meet more of our neighbors, since that was the only thing she could yell to us... what can I say, we're reclusive) Anyway, neither Margaret nor I were coherent enough to realize that it wasn't a dream, and my brother, who was visiting, ended up answering the door. When he came to the door, she frantically told him that someone had thrown a cigarette butt on our planting strip in front of the house, and since it's been hot and dry here, the bark mulch caught fire and was smoking pretty bad. She had run down to her house to get a rake and bucket of water, but needed more water and was banging on the door to ask about a hose. Actually, that was pretty diligent of her to do--I probably would have just peed on it--kidding. Margaret, alway pragmatic, upon hearing about the fire, first asked if the blueberries were okay. Yes, Margaret, they were--but the dandelions and crab grass will never be the same. The fire got put out, but it's really incurred my wrath that a stupid smoker just carelessly tossed that butt on the ground and started the fire. Do they really think that that's not littering? Just because their lungs are trash-filled and burnt black doesn't mean they can do it to my yard! The neighbor pointed out several times that the cigarette butt had bright red lipstick on it, so now I'll be scrutinizing every woman and drag queen that walks by our house smoking. I just need to think of a just punishment for them for making our front yard smell like a camp fire and for waking us all up so early--I only wake up that early on Tuesdays so I can frantically pull the trash out that I've forgotten to do the night before.

Speaking of which, one time my parents had slaughtered an animal and had thrown the head into the garbage, but it was the day after the garbage man had picked up, so it just festered in the garbage can for a week in the summer heat. On the day of garbage collection, my brother set his alarm clock early so he would be up to watch the garbage man's reaction at seeing--and particularly SMELLING--the rotting pool of ichor that was surely at the bottom of that garbage can. Evidently from the trash collector's reaction, it was worth his while to get up so early.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of bad smells, remember tormenting Jamie and Jayson with the bottle of morning breeze....man I would like to find a bottle of that good old stink bomb again.....