Enter at Your Own Risk

WARNING! 

Prayer is a subversive activity. If you never prayed this or a similar kind of prayer, please DON’T!

There is no telling what might happen next... 

I’ve barely finished my whimpering ‘gardener’ when, 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 

EVERGRINGOTT.

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. He looks at my rabid-squirrel-rampaged lawn and then back at me. I slowly get off my knees.

But I didn’t ask for any landscaping service…

Hmmm... that’s  really funny. I thought you did…

No, 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 dangerous conversation into the familiar waters teeming with excuses.

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

How’ bout that!, he interrupts. 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 hesitates as if looking for an accurate word to describe my wretched yard. He politely decides against naming the beast…. To turn this into a garden of Eden.

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

And how much is that pleasure going to cost me?

He clasps his hands, intertwining the 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 his hands tells me he knows what he is talking about. And something about his eyes tells me he is dead-serious.  I might be a fool, but I am not an idiot. Who in their right mind could decline such an offer?!!!

I grab his hand with both of mine 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.