EATIN' WEEDS

It's only five-thirty on a Sunday morning, and I'm wide awake.  I've
not slept since Friday night. I know what you're thinking, but, no, I
don't have a guilty conscience.  Neither am I distressed over some
unsuccessful romantic exploit (I've learned to live with those
disappointments).

The demon which has barred me from Dreamland is not imagined or
emotional at all.  It is entirely too real and corporeal.  I'm
hurting.  There's no blood flowing (at least not since about ten last
night), and the way my injuries look to the eye would make you think
that I'm a real wimp to be complaining about such trivial scratches. 
Maybe so, but, like the saying goes, the only "minor" surgery is on
somebody else.

The pain that I've experienced over the course of the evening is not
excruciating.  Hell, if it were that bad, I would have gone to the
Doc in th' Box to get something for it.  I'm not really a cry-baby,
and am also just "macho" enough to want to think that I can take more
than a minor boo-boo witho ut having to go whining for some
pain-killer.  However, every time I was about to stumble into
Slumberville, I would be rudely reminded of my stupidity by the
sensation of a thousand tiny needles poking me in the sites of my
various punctures, lacerations, and bruises.

It's a shame that I was pretty much by myself yesterday, because I
think you would have really enjoyed the spectacle that I starred in
during the process of accumulating this current set of epidermal
distresses.  It must have been a real show, but it was somehow
produced backwards, because it wasn't until the action was over that
"Makeup" provided me with the splotches of merthiolate and "Wardrobe"
outfitted me with these Band-aids and the Ace bandage.

Do you remember how we used to act out our favorite television
programs when we were kids? My favorite when I was nine or ten was
"The Lone Ranger", and I would gallop around the neighborhood on my
stick Silver, shooting the guns out of the hands of the nefarious,
albeit invisible, bad guys.  I hadn't thought about that in years,
but I think that may be what I was doing yesterday.  Not emulating
Clayton Moore, but something similar nonetheless.  And it's mostly
your fault.  You know how hard it is for me to resist a pun, and
it's your bizarre sense of humor coupled with mine that made me refer
to the Wednesday night cop and lawyer show as "My Gardenin' Show",
otherwise known as "Law'n' Order".  In retrospect, I think I should
watch more episodes of "Nine-One-One" instead.  

In any case, yesterday was the day that I had determined would be
the end of my procrastination of the yard chores around here.  The
day started innocently enough.  I had no more than the usual amount
of trouble getting the mower to start, and I "snorted" around the
place for a couple of hours watching the tall grass get whittled down
to its proper size.  I was just not paying attention when I ran over
that piece of plastic that was buried in the thatch.  

The mower died as soon as the plastic wrapped itself around the
blades.  No big deal, right?  I just unwrapped the plastic from
underneath the mower and wound the starting rope around the pulley on
top of the engine to re-start the mower.  One mighty tug, and the
engine roared to life.  

Uh, oh!  The rope got hung up on the pulley and the force of the
engine jerked the rope out of my hand and was slinging the handle of
the rope around and around like a mechanical gaucho whirling a
bola.

No problem!  The arc of the handle was fairly constant, so all
I needed to do was to slip underneath it and hit the kill switch on
the engine and start over.  So I did.  I don't know how I ever made
that "A" in high school physics, because it never dawned on me that
when I killed the engine on the mower that the handle of the starting
rope wouldn't just plummet vertically and immediately.  

It didn't, and that was the source of my first contusion of the
day...if I hadn't had my cap on, it would have probably hurt a lot
worse than it did.  It didn't break my glasses or my skin, but it did
rip a fair sized hole in the cap.

After a few choice epithets were hurled in the general direction of
the mower, I gathered my wits and tried again.  There was no glitch
this time, and I mowed merrily away  ("Hi, Yo, Silver!") 

As I traversed the yard I discovered the nemesis of all of us who
like to walk barefoot in the grass. Goatheads and grassburrs!  I
hadn't seen them before because the grass had been too tall, but the
spiny little bastards couldn't hide from me now!  "I'll annihilate
you before the day is out, my prickly cohabitants!"  

So, after I finished with the grass and the mower, I sauntered
nonchalantly over to the shed to get the gas-powered weed eater to
trim up the grass I couldn't get to with the mower (and to wreak
havoc on those damned sticker weeds).

I would like to blame the weed-eater for the events that ensued,
imparting some mechanical and malevolently devious intelligence to
the contrivance.  But the plain truth of the matter is that the
weed-eater did exactly what is was supposed to do, without flaw, and
the only real contribution that led to my sleepless night was my own
carelessness.

I should have known better than to try to extirpate grassburrs with
a weed-eater without donning some long pants and boots, but it just
seemed like too much trouble to go in the house and change clothes
for a ten minute job.  

So cut-off jeans, my Sunday shoes (the holey ones), and the cap with
the new rip in it were all I was wearing. Another physics lesson,
kiddies.  When a weed-eater wraps its nylon tentacle around a
grassburr stem and plucks it unceremoniously from its root, the
combination of organic and inorganic matter moves at a tremendous
velocity.  When a grassburr, moving at a great speed, encounters a
relatively unmovable object, such as a bare leg, the collision
sometimes results in the embedding of thorns into tender flesh at
surprising depths.

"Ouch!  Damn, that hurts!"  The two minutes that it would have taken
me to put on some long britches turned into about fifteen minutes
with the tweezers digging the tiny little thorns out of my leg and
ankle.  "Hey, Badge, haven't you had enough, yet?  Why don't you
quit for the day?" "But there's just a little bit more to do, and I
may want to do something else tomorrow, so I think I'll just weed-eat
around the dog pens on the North side of the house before I call it
a day. Besides, I'm through with the grassburrs, so what else could
go wrong?"

The weed-eater purred and roared at all the appropriate times as I
worked my way around the fence gobbling weeds for all we were worth. 
Just one more little section to go, and all I had to do is to step
over this insignificant three foot fence, and I'd be there and on
the very last part of my chore.  

Now the Lone Ranger used to ride a horse all day, catapult himself
from a running horse onto a fleeing outlaw or runaway stagecoach, and
accomplish all sorts of amazing stunts without sustaining any
apparent harm whatsoever.  But, looking back, I never saw the Lone
Ranger step over a three foot fence with a weed-eater.  At least not
until he had stopped the engine on the weed-eater.  As a matter of
fact, I don't think I ever saw him step over a fence at all.  I
should have watched more carefully and paid heed to his example.

I've given you all the education in physics that you're going to get
from me today.  It's time to change classes.  We will now discuss
health issues and language arts.

When the business end of the weed-eater contacted my forearm and
elbow, it created a health issue.  Bits of flesh and drops of blood
were flung into my face and temporarily blinded me as I closed my
eyes in a grimace while I was still astraddle the three-foot fence .

In my present posture I couldn't move quickly without placing myself
in great testicular peril, but I moved fast anyway.  When that pain
registered, I instinctively moved my free hand to guard against
further damage.  Only my free hand wasn't free...it was still
holding the weed-eater.  

Although I was circumcised as an infant and I suffered the discomfort
of a vasectomy following the birth of my youngest child, I am
confident that I have now developed the skills with which to perform
these procedures on others.  All I need is a willing patient, a three
foot fence, and a weed-eater.

I won't describe the resultant trauma in graphic detail, and I won't
give you exact quotes of what was uttered on that afternoon, but I
heard the door to the neighbor's house slam just as I was getting
into the heat of my discussion with the weed-eater.  I had never
before even heard the particular combination of oaths and names which
flowed from my imagination just like the blood was flowing from my
arm.  I suppose that the most inventive innovations are contrived
while one is in the throes of passion of some sort, and I was
definitely waxing poetic about the immediate company and past events.
 The cat even ran away so he wouldn't have to hear it.

Suffice it to say that my diatribe added to my list of pains that I
suffered because I think I must have scorched my mouth.  My mother
would have been mortified.

I wonder if the Lone Ranger ever said anything like that?