Adventures in Mowing the Lawn – Part II
She sighed, and then looked out across the lawn to survey the situation. The night before, after Michy had managed to mow the one half of the front yard, she noticed some very obvious brown patches in the little grass that remained through the scorching heat of the past week, so she decided to turn the water hose on and water the yard while she finished making the hamburgers.
Apparently, even though she had asked the boy child to turn the water hose off last night, at least three times while she was making the hamburger fixings, the little heathen had been more interested in his cartoons than in doing what the woman he called his mother had asked him.
So, the right side of the lawn she had managed to water was now reminiscent of a rice paddie field, with her tulip flower bed fence floating along like canoe in the small lake that had now formed, with only a little bit of grass sticking up here and there.
Once the right side of the square yard filled with water, the water overflowed onto the sidewalk and backed up against the front porch, making a nice swimming pool that Michy’s cocker spaniel (you know, the dogs wtih the long ears and long hair hanging down their bodies?) thought was a great place to lay down and roll over on her back and and wiggle. Sigh!
Then when the porch filled up, the rivers began to run. One river broke off from the flood and started running down the little concrete strip in front of the flower bed… this river proceeded to flood the driveway, and Michy walked down the sidewalk separating the two sides of the yard, down to the street, and then up her driveway. Surveying the driveway, Michy realized that when she had asked the Universe for a concrete swimming pool, she really should have clarified her intentions. This was not exactly what she had in mind.
The second river that broke off from the flood had begun to drain itself into the left side of the yard, which apparently slopes down toward the house and not the street. So half of the left side of the yard was a rice paddie while the part of the yard that is exposed to the sun all day long was bone dry still.
Once the left side of the yard had filled completely, it overflowed and also began adding to the driveway swimming pool that was created beside the side door. After the driveway swimming pool filled to capacity, it began draining into the small strip of grass, about one foot in width, that runs down the side of the driveway.
Wading in her now sopping wet slippers through the soaked driveway, Michy could see that the strip beside the driveway was also flooded, and had begun to drain into the street. Walking now to the curb, she could see the nice flow of water running downhill in the gutter. Michy is all for helping out the environment, but watering the concrete of the street really was serving no purpose.
Sloshing her way back to the front porch, Michy kicks off her drenched slippers, opens the door to the front living room, and yells, “Boy! Come here!”
“What? What did I do?” he asks, innocent as always.
“Do you remember last night when I told you to turn off the water hose?” she asks.
“You did?” he shrugs.
“Yeah, at least three times…”
“Oh. How bad is it?” he questions.
“Go look for yourself,” she tells him, holding the door open.
“Cool! Can I go play in it?”
Sigh!
“Yeah, well YOU don’t have to pay the water bill either!”
So the boy turns the hose off and starts splashing around in the puddles, while Michy rolls up the hose, and gives a tentative look at the mower, trying to ignore that it was, alas, not stolen in the night.
Too bad, she thinks.
She considered attempting to mow the back yard, but when she turned to look at the lawn mower, she could see it staring at her with a menacing grin… well, okay, but that’s how it looked, and she was not so sure that mowing today was the best plan. To prove her thoughts were correct, just when she reached for the handle of the mower, a wasp flew out from the tree limb by her head, and in her screaming and swirling frenzy, she tripped over her own feet, fell up the three steps (yes, you can indeed fall up steps) and landed with her head firmly against the outside wall.
SMACK! Ouch. Sigh!
Water Hose, one
Lawn Mower, one by default
Wasp, one (Think he flew away laughing)
House wall, one
Michy, zero
Michy came inside, perhaps slamming the front door a bit harder than she needed to, and then threw herself down on the couch, much like the night before. Michy leaned her head back and closed her eyes, and she might have drifted off a bit, but she heard a scratching noise at the door. She opened one eye, and then the other, and when she heard only silence she closed them both again.
Woof! Woof! :: scratch scratch ::
Damn! She forgot the dog was still outside.
Picking herself up off the couch, which was no easy feat at this time, she shuffled her still wet and now a bit cold and wrinkled feet to the door and opened it. A ball of reddish something comes wagging in the room, and jumps up on the couch – wet fur, water, mud and all…not a good combination!
“Dani, get off the couch… man… Come on, Dani, get your wet mutt butt off the couch!” (This is the semi true part, because she actually was using much stronger language at this point than she cares to share in this story.)
So a towel down and brushing later, the dog is laying upside down on the floor, on top of the freshly washed new comfortor, Michy decides that between wet feet, muddy and wet dog, sweat, and sheer frustration, taking a shower is probably the best thing to do – because, of course, she needed to increase the water bill even more. But then she thought, Why bother, I can just go bathe in the new driveway swimming pool!
Looks like the lawn mowing will be postponed for one more day!
Stay tuned for our next episode: Adventures in Lawn Mowing, Part III – The Day the Mower was Murdered, or What’s That Buried in the Back Yard?
