The previous owner of our house was a botanist, and she did a fantastic job planting gardens that always have something in bloom. We did an equally fantastic job of completely neglecting everything outside so that the house looks abandoned, or possibly under attack by some kind of malevolent plant monster.
Our front walk is flanked by lavender plants (bushes? shrubs? Some of the branches have gotten thick enough that I'm thinking about calling them "trees") that have pushed out over the concrete and started getting in the way. I trimmed them back last year, but they have returned in full force. While the plants on either side of the walk don't quite touch each other, there's no way to keep from having them rub up against anyone trying to enter or leave the house.
This isn't a problem. The lazy bees who have nothing better to do besides loiter around my lavender bushes all day like shriners at an open bar are the problem.
That's right, bees. You heard me, Science. All those missing bees that you're looking for? Maybe you should check my front yard, because I can count at least six of them, and sometimes as many as twenty, available at all hours*.
It's a gauntlet made of bees, and I have to run it any time I want to go to work, get groceries, check the mail, or leave a flaming bag of poo on my neighbor's doorstep. It's at the point where I've got to psych myself up before I can leave the house to do anything.
As always, I recognize the importance of staying positive, and have been trying to tell myself that this is a good thing. After all, if I dont want to run this gauntlet of bees, then it must keep out unwanted guests and/or intruders, too. It was a comforting thought, until the doorbell rang yesterday.
What good is having a bee gauntlet if it won't keep out Jehova's witnesses?
*Okay, hold your horses, apiarists both amateur and professional, before you go posting all kinds of scientific mumbo jumbo about how what I've got in my yard are only bumblebees, not honeybees. I'll tell you right now: I don't want to hear it.
You know, a good way to keep Jehovah's Witnesses or other proselytizers is to tell them you are a Buddhist. They kind of look at you funny and smile and say "oh..." Because most of them don't quite know what a Buddhist believes and don't quite know where to begin.
ReplyDeleteOf course in my case I am a Buddhist. Not devout or anything. I just happened to be born into a Buddhist household. ;)
So far, I've just been kind of giving them a vacant smile and nodding politely. After their little spiel winds down, they just hand me their newsletter and leave.
ReplyDeleteIt works, but that might be because I'm standing in the half-open doorway and barring them from entering the house.
Might it also have had something to do with the fact that you were buck naked and packing heat?
ReplyDeleteNah, that can't be it. It could have been the body odor, though.
ReplyDelete