Last year – or perhaps it was two years ago – I decided that my house looked like a serial killer lived here. Not just a serial killer’s GIRLFRIEND (I heart you, Dexter), but a reclusive serial killer who probably chopped up hookers to make light fixtures out of their boobs.
The overgrown shrubbery had practically obscured all the windows in the front and I intended to remove them. All 958 of them.
I’d bought myself a pickax and a number of loppers capable of removing my fingers with a quick motion and set to work. I did manage to remove a few of the bushes myself before I paid the neighbor kid to remove the rest. When I’d started the process, see, I hadn’t expected that the early landscapers would plant so many fucking bushes atop each other.
But they did. Thanks, old landscapers.
After my neighbor was off spending the check I wrote him on a new iPod, I surveyed my lawn. Clearly something had to go in the gigantic trench the bushes had left behind. But…what? I’m no arborist or botanist and frankly, by that point, I’d rather have gouged out my eyeball with my pickax than replant some.
I made mention of this requirement to The Daver.
Me: “It looks like we’ve dug a foxhole in our front yard.”
The Daver: “Yep.”
Me: “Like any moment, World War II vets are going to pour into the holes and start shooting at the neighbor’s dogs.”
The Daver: “Yep.”
Me: “Or maybe a moat.”
The Daver: “Yep.”
Me: “But it can’t be a moat without a fire-breathing dragon and some cannons. Can we get a fire-breathing dragon?”
The Daver (not even looking up from his work): “Nope.”
Me: “Well, I need to replant some shit in there.”
The Daver: “Yep.”
Me: “Maybe some of those plants that eat people.”
The Daver: “Nope.”
Me: “Okay, then what?”
The Daver: “That’s your job to figure out.”
Me: “I hate planning.”
The Daver (now looking up, exasperated): “You need to sit down, figure out what will grow in there, the supplies you’ll need to install them, the places you can purchase these plants, and how long it will take you to put them in. I want an itemized list.”
Me: “Hrms. Maybe I can put the old, dead bushes back.”
The Daver: “Nope.”
Me (flicking off the back of his head): “Bite me.”
Asking me for an itemized list, cross-indexed and color-coded is a lot like asking me to turn into a bullfrog. Much as you might like it, it just ain’t gonna happen.
So my foxhole sat through the winter, sadly unoccupied by any roving WWII vets or fire-breathing dragons.
This spring, rather than broach the subject again, I simply went to Lowe’s and bought a bunch of flowering shrubs, giggling because the term “flowering shrub” sounds like a wicked STD.
Feeling particularly eye of the motherfucking tiger, I planted them a couple of weeks ago. And when I did, I realized there was a conspiracy afoot.
I needed to buy dirt.
Let me say that again: I needed to buy DIRT. Somehow the shit manages to find it’s way into my carpets and all over my children, and yet, I had to go spend real dollar bills on DIRT. In fact, I needed to purchase a substantial amount of dirt. Clearly, this was The Man keeping us (me) down.
It was also bullshit.
I haven’t exactly BOUGHT the dirt yet, which means I now have what appears to be a foxhole with shrubs growing out of it. I suppose the roving WWII vets will be pleased that their foxhole has been decorated with some fancy new shrubs.
Even with the occasional rain of bullets from down below, I’m certain my neighbors are thrilled that it no longer looks like a serial killer resides here.
Probably.
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Who wants to come over and fill in my foxhole for with me?
I was shocked by how much space my new house had. We’d gone from cramming ourselves into a wee three-bedroom condo without storage space to a house that had three floors and so much storage space that it seemed obscene.
It was beyond startling when, the weekend that we moved in, my new neighbors began showing up at my doorstep with plates brownies and cookies and treats to introduce themselves and to meet us. Our condo building was filled with incredibly unpleasant older, single cat ladies who didn’t like us. They’d have been more apt to leave a bag of poo on our doorstep than a plate of cookies.
With the exception of the people we shared a porch with, there was no one in the building who didn’t hate us. I still don’t know why.
We’d just happened to move into Pleasantville, which is what I STILL call my neighborhood. House after prefab house filled with pleasant, kind people. On Halloween, there’s a house that hands out hot chocolate and hot toddy’s. Another grills hotdogs and passes out beer and soda. If I had a binder, I’d write, “Aunt Becky + Her Neighborhood = Tru Luv” in loopy letters, surrounded by a bunch of pink, puffy hearts.
(sorta like I do with my Pranksters. You all have pink puffy hearts around you)
So when my neighbor, my son’s friend’s mother, invited me over for a “Pampered Chef” party, I was thrilled. Well, thrilled might not be the proper word. I was thrilled to be invited, but I liked cooking about as much as I liked grinding a lightbulb into my eye socket.
But I marched on over there for the party and sat down with a number of older women I didn’t know. Everyone was, of course, way friendly, but the person who was demonstrating the products began to blab. And she kept blabbing.
OMFG she kept on blabbing. I’d never SEEN someone talk so much. (as someone who routinely “talks paint off walls, THAT’S saying a LOT).
It was like one of those cooking shows I never watch because I cannot stand the blabbing. I mean, I love a good meal, but I’d rather cut my leg off than prepare it, or worse, watch someone who isn’t going to GIVE me the meal prepare it.
In the middle of her blabbing, I decided that I, too, could cook. And that I, too, needed THOSE SPECIFIC TOOLS to cook with. Certainly it wasn’t MY problem I couldn’t cook. It was because I didn’t have the Pampered Chef chopper-thingy! Or the cutting board! Or the grill thingy!
I blew a hundred bucks that night on crap so I, too, could be a COOKER-PERSON.
It took a week or so before my order came in. Immediately, I opened my miracle chopper thingy and put it together. I had fajitas I was gonna make! This was a WIN! Plus, my stuff looked so FANCY in the empty cabinets!
Only…the chopper thing didn’t really, well, WORK. The blades were always falling off, which meant that someone as dumb as me was tasked with slipping the blades BACK IN TO their rightful place. Without losing part of my thumb. It took me half an hour to cut up a green pepper, not including the time spent washing the stupid thing out. Had I used a knife, it would have taken less than five minutes.
That Chopper-Thing Was BULLSHIT.
The tiny spatula I’d bought, well, the handle fell off after a couple of months. The cutting board was fine, but nothing I couldn’t have bought anywhere else more cheaply.
I was a little discouraged, knowing I’d never become a Cooker-Person, but I cheered up when I realized that this meant I could eat more McDonald’s.
Those golden arches, they NEVER disappoint me.
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Tell me, Pranksters, what do you think of those in-home parties like Pampered Chef or Tupperware? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? I need a good laugh today.
Land’s End sent me a bathing suit. I know, I know, you’re thinking, “WHY would anyone send Aunt Becky ANYTHING besides a yacht?” and I’m wondering the same thing. In fact, I’m still WAITING for my yacht.
*taps foot impatiently*
Land’s End sent me a bathing suit so that I would post a picture of myself wearing it on my blog. You can see the error in their thinking, right?
I can.
This was probably NOT what they wanted:
Better yet, this:
Sorry, Land’s End.
I couldn’t resist.
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