Friday, October 14

I Got Dem Term'nally Suburban, All Outta Bourbon, Leaf Blowin', Snow Throwin', Natcher'l Gas Middle Class Blues

It's winterizing time here in the Great Midwest, which this year means that thanks to my numb-nutted fellow citizens who felt that electing a coke-addled legacy oilman with a dishwater IQ would ensure their cherished fantasies of terror and mayhem would remain our #1 excuse for making criminally stupid decisions, we're looking at a 25% increase in natural gas prices at least. If nothing else we get to relive the 70s, which at least makes me feel young again.

I try to jump on things early because I have the biggest leaf-related disposal activities program in the neighborhood. I have the first leaves to fall and the last, and a lot in between. I'll be rakin' stuff up three weeks after my neighbors have gone inside for the duration, the wimps, plus I shred everything and compost it while they just stuff it in bags and send it off to the landfill. Once it's consistently over 50ยบ F next spring they'll come around and ask me for gardening hints.

Yesterday afternoon's project was caulking the windows in back, the end of a three-year program that began with the west-facing front yard, moved to the sides of the house and the second story, and finishes now. It reminded me of the following, which we saw recently on one of those home remodeling shows you can occasionally find on teevee:

Hairdo #1: I finally finished caulking, and my hands are killing me.
Hairdo #2: Which caulking gun did you use?
Hairdo #1: What's a caulking gun?

A previous owner of this place seems to have mostly dispensed with a caulking gun as well. Near as I can tell he sliced the top off the tube, dug out the caulk with a flexible scraper, bent the thing back like you'd fling peas with a butter knife, and aimed in the general direction of the windows. There were two attendant aesthetic decisions: one, do not smooth the resultant globs, for that Jackson Pollock effect, and two, always use gloss white no matter your surroundings. I have to wear sunglasses to scrape the stuff off. I do hope to meet him someday.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hairdo #1: What's a caulking gun?

*snort*
Apparently Focus on the Family considers the Home and Garden Channel to be a hotbed of homosexuality. Oh, and Animal Planet.
HGTV I can see, but Animal Planet? Really?

Love the title.

Anonymous said...

Animal Planet! Focus on the Family has such a filthy mind. They see dogs sniffin' each other's behinds and they can't help themselves.

They are serious pervs.

As for the leaves, this is why I love being an apartment-dwelling city slicker. No leaves, better insulation. Aw, yeah!

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

Well that was some weird nearly-trans-continental synchronicity, D. Sidhe. One of my fondest memories of the old Salon Table Talk days was the mock thread somebody starting exposing teevee's hidden heterosexual agenda. "Did you realize there's a character on Will and Grace who's not gay?" That sort of thing. And I chimed in about HGTV. "Sure, it's all window treatments and color palates in prime time," says I, "but get up Saturday morning and it's all caulk, caulk, caulk."

zencomix said...

I bag all the leaves I can, wet them down with a hose and then stack the bags along the north wall. I don't start composting them until Spring...