Springtime brings out the crazies
It’s spring time, and everything in my yard is emerging from its six-month nap underneath the mulch. The city crews are cleaning the streets and patching pot holes, and there is a general feeling of renewal in the crisp air. I stand in the front yard taking it all in as the last beams of the April sunset reflect off the still-snow-dusted mountains behind me. I am confronted with the general disrepair that was somehow hidden under the snow and pre-daylight savings time.
My mind turns to thoughts of arson. These are times when I even wistfully think of aluminum siding. Then I remember that clause in my living will that activates my Jack Kevorkian gift certificate should I ever be seen in the presence of an aluminum siding salesman. Besides, I hear the new wave in low maintenance house apparel is vinyl siding.
Just think, I could clean my house and my dashboard with Armor-All. The weeds I killed last year have risen like Jason in one of those “Friday the 13th” sequels. They taunt me as they sprout up near those $50 evergreens that turned brown and died since last fall. I lay amidst the dandelions and look up at the fluffy windswept clouds, and I daydream of Vietnam era B-52s dropping defoliant and napalm on my back yard. I wonder aloud if Ernst Hardware carries Agent Orange.
Springtime makes me do crazy things. I recently gave $400 to a guy I had never met before and set him and his coworkers loose in my yard with chain saws. The result? I rid the world of two obnoxious Box Elder trees and supplied myself with enough barbecue wood for the next century. I fear the evicted box elder bugs and their siblings will be out to get me. I imagine them having to move into substandard saplings on the “wrong side of town.” But I get over it. Whilst changing the oil in the winter napping lawn mower, I curse the idiots who brought Kentucky bluegrass seed West in covered wagons or handcarts. What were they thinking? The last time I was in Kentucky, I don’t recall people there trying to grow sagebrush.
Nothing much we do in our yards makes sense. We water and fertilize grass so it will grow thicker and faster, so we have to cut it more often. I fling more obscenities to the spring winds as I try to untangle the Eagle Scout knot-tying exam of garden hoses that seem to be only slightly less intricately knitted than the Christmas tree lights I just packed up. I momentarily consider letting the lawn die a slow thirsty death, but then I remember the “Friday the 13th” weeds. I also remember that in most communities you can actually get a ticket for not mowing your lawn. I imagine my humiliation for being imprisoned on a lawn mowing violation. Maybe I could get my yard designated a “Utah native plants arboretum.” After all, I’m betting the weeds were here before the Kentucky bluegrass. Maybe I could turn my yard into a basketball court.
Nope, all that bouncing and slam dunking would keep me awake. Or, maybe a sand volleyball court. Nope, it would just attract cats from the three adjoining counties. Then it hit me.
I could turn my house into a “Dude House.”
You know, like where all those city folks from Detroit and Chicago go to spend a week of their corporate vacation working on a dude ranch for an authentic Wild West experience. Well, I could let apartment dwellers spend their vacations working at my house, just for that rustic mortgage-owner experience. I could even set out a bag of donuts and a pot of coffee and call it a Bed and Breakfast Dude House. And I could rent time for people to run up and down my stairs instead of working out on StairMasters in those stuffy gyms. I could call it a Bed and Breakfast Dude House Spa. Then I could play some Yani tapes, burn some incense and read really bad poetry and call it a Bed and Breakfast Dude House Spa Retreat Center. Yeah, Dennis’ Bed and Breakfast Dude House Spa Retreat Center. I feel better now.
Dennis Hinkamp’s column appears every Wednesday in The Utah Statesman. Comments may be e-mailed to