[Author’s Note: Normally when I write one of these, I ask my assistant (a.k.a. Jen) to proofread what I’ve written for any errors before I click the “Publish” button. But time kinda got away from me this week, so there wasn’t enough time to do both that and meet my self-imposed “Monday deadline”. So, any spelling or grammatical errors are solely on me.]

[Another Author’s Note: This week’s story isn’t nearly as disgusting as the one last week. Hardly any dead raccoons were involved, they aren’t worth mentioning.]


I love Spring. I know, that’s kinduva no-brainer – who doesn’t? All over the place, grass greens up and gets thick and lush. Even the crappiest yards look pretty good because weeds love this weather too, and dandelions are kinda pretty. Everyone’s yard is a finalist for the “Better Homes & Gardens” cover, except ours.

The other day, Jen and I were on one of her Facebook Marketplace missions to go pick up something or other and we found ourselves in a pretty nice neighborhood off Hackman Rd., a few miles from us. Nice houses, nicer lots with big, beautiful yards and luscious landscaping. I’m not too ashamed to admit that I had some serious “lawn envy” going on. The older I get, the more I can feel myself morphing into a “yard dork/snob”. I haven’t hit the insufferable stage quite yet, but I’m on the right path.

For a few years after my stroke, Jen was forced into the role of head groundskeeper, and it was her responsibility to take care of our yard. Up until then, that was my turf (no pun intended) but I had been sidelined and taken out of commission.  After a while, we decided to install an irrigation system and hire a lawn care company. Even though we both kinda wanted a nice lawn, she wanted no part of moving sprinklers every twenty minutes each time we watered the grass, nor did she want to have to spread crabgrass preventer/fertilizer/whatever 4-5 times a season. I can’t say I blame her, even though I always liked a little yardwork from time to time, I didn’t love it. After a couple seasons of regular watering and attention by our lawncare professionals, things were looking pretty, pretty good (if I say so myself) – a lot better than when I was in charge! There’s something to be said for paying people who know what they’re doing to come over and take care of things. It definitely wasn’t the most beautiful lawn I’d ever seen in my life, far from it, but it certainly was the nicest yard this house had ever looked at (at least, since 1998).

So, here’s a big reason our yard won’t be featured on a magazine cover anytime soon:

One day last Fall, we returned home from an afternoon of running errands to find a construction crew in our front yard. They were in the process of digging a big-a$$, 10’ long, 2½‘ deep trench across our yard. Once we parked in the garage and got unloaded, we went out to talk to/confront them. We were hot too, my BP felt to be about 205/170, and Jen looked to be mad enough to throw a few ‘Goshdarnits!’ and ‘What the hecks?!’ at them. About 30 seconds into our malicious tirade, we realized that they spoke little to no English, and our mastery of the Spanish language stopped at: ‘Si’, ‘Gracias’ and ‘Por favor?’. So, they just stood there looking at us, smiling and nodding. Actually, looking back, it was pretty funny, but at the time we weren’t laughing too hard at all.

None of it was their fault, they were just doing what they were hired to do by a company called Gateway Fiber. You can bet that 15 minutes later, I was sending a very strongly worded email to that company, I was also writing a fairly irate, blunt and direct text message to our alderperson (as soon as I figured out who she was). I’m pretty sure I had them both quaking in their work boots/sensible pumps. To their credit, they both replied to me to try and remedy the situation, but nothing really came from it. Gateway Fiber assured me that after their crew backfilled the trench and spread some grass seed, we wouldn’t even be able to tell they were ever there, in a couple weeks. That didn’t happen. Stevie Wonder would’ve taken one look and said, ‘Something ain’t right.’

They must’ve used the cheapest grass seed they could find on Amazon – the one that said “*** DISCONTINUED ITEM ***” and had the words “Highway Weeds” printed on the label. When it sprouted and came up, it was scraggly, lime-green and it grew twice as fast as the rest of the grass. When it’s time to mow the lawn every week or so, our yard looks like it has a neon green Mohawk.

We knew that Gateway Fiber, a company that provides high-speed internet access, was in our area because we had seen their work crews on the next street over in the weeks earlier. We noticed that they weren’t destroying every yard too badly, they seemed to be skipping over every other yard for some reason – I know next to nothing about how burying cable works. We just crossed our fingers and hoped they would be nice to us and our yard when they got to our street. That didn’t happen either. When they got to our house, they hit it with gusto, like we had insulted their mom or sister or something. In fact, they tore up our yard more than any other yard on the block for some reason. Incidentally, we use AT&T, a direct competitor of theirs, as our internet provider. They managed to bury their cable from the junction box in the side yard to our house while limiting the destruction to our lawn. We barely knew they’d been there.

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My Thought of Day:

The Scent of the Day (SotD) today is “Fresh Brewed Coffee” – it’s one of my favorites, I love it!  I am required by law to drink coffee every morning and I’m pretty sure I can’t live without it, but why does coffee always smell tons better than it tastes? That isn’t the case with cinnamon rolls or chili.
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We got a guy coming over in a couple weeks to talk about putting down sod in a problem area in the backyard. When he does, we’re also gonna see if he can fix the front yard so I can quit cursing in my head every time we pull into the driveway when coming home.

I realize that this is all just a “First World Problem” (a.k.a., “White People Problem “) or whatever. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t that big of a deal, and I should just be glad we don’t live in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip or someplace like that. But man, I was ticked!



Auf Geht’s zum Blues!


– Jim