Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Whining Fast 101 – Enter At Your Own Risk

This is the only warning I am going to give to you. Prayer is a subversive activity. If you never prayed this or similar kind of prayer, please DON’T! There is no telling what might happen next.

As if on a cue, a white truck with a trailer hitched to it swings around the corner of our street and pulls in front of our house. A single word emblazoned on its side in large bold letters says EVERGRINGOT.

Now, that’s a strange name… wonder what it means…

A guy jumps out, taking off his hands-free as he finishes up a conversation:

Thanks for asking…I am already on my way – be there in a sec.
He slams the door behind him and waves at me.

Er.. sir… It seems like you got a wrong house.
I glance at the trailer, filled with all the apps and widgets one might need to run a professional landscaping business.

You must be Bob’s landscape guy… He shook his head and burst into laughter,

It seems to me that I am at just the right house.
I look at my rabid-squirrel-rampaged lawn and slowly get off my knees.

But I didn’t call for any landscaping service…


Hm.. that’s funny. I thought you did…

I was just... I stop mid-sentence, realizing that if I finish it, I would sound totally weird. Being weird is definitely not my thing. So, I decide to steer the conversation into the familiar water teeming with excuses.

Sir, you don’t understand… It’s not that I think we don't NEED landscaping service…we really can’t afford…

How’ bout that, he interrupted, … It just so happens that we are running a special today… all-inclusive, full-service gardener with the works – tools, plants, an experienced expert, everything you need to turn this… he hesitated as if looking for an accurate word to describe my wretched yard, but decided against it…. To turn this into a garden of Eden.

This guy is either a con-artist or a lunatic,
I smile at him and as if humoring a lunatic.

And how much is that pleasure going to cost me?

He clasped his hands, intertwining his fingers. I could see dirt under his fingernails.

Already prepaid. In full. No-end contract. You need to show up though. It’s your lawn after all. Sort of… Do we have a deal?

He stretched out his hand waiting for me. Something about those hands tells me he knows what he is talking about and he is dead-serious. If my jaw hasn’t been bruised enough already, this time would have done me in.

If this happens one more time, I will need a maxillofacial surgeon and who is going to pay for that?

I grab his hand and shake it vigorously.

We got ourselves a deal, Sir. We got ourselves a DEAL!


And so I got me my very own personal Gardener.

Prayer is a subversive activity. It should be entered only at your own risk.

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