The roar is deafening as the cataclysm commences. The sky is blue; yet from above a consuming juggernaut crashes through walls, severs bodies and carves a path through the town. Indeed, the residents run to no avail, seeking shelter yet finding none. Some take flight, seeking safety, while some retreat into specially designed shelters. Still, the Destroyer continues, spreading Death to all in its path.
I hate yard work.
The futility of this suburban ritual is augmented by our neighborhood association, which gets ansty if we aren't diligent. The empty house next door was bought by some house flippers at a foreclosure sale. I have cut the grass so many times, that I am considering sending the new, unseen, non-resident owners a bill. Still, there is yet another reason why I have to keep the grass cut: Snakes.
To a certain wife whose name I won't mention, all snakes are either poisonous vipers or deadly anacondas. If she sees one, she will summon me to dispatch it. I have killed 4 (although I have seen a dozen; but she doesn't have to know that). I have no qualms about "Eighty-Sixing" nuisance animals; yet the greater question is "why do I have to?"
The lake and forest behind us an undeveloped expanse belonging to some paper mill. Creatures great and small bound across the field, from deer to foxes, to armadillos to opossum, to the greedy raccoon who begs at our back door every few nights (even though we don't feed him; but he tries all of the houses one by one). The snakes are merely following the food chain of bugs, lizards and other consumables that thrive when the grass gets too high. And so I cut.
I still hate yard work. To pass the time I imagine that I am merely saving a snake's life, a serpent who won't be visiting because there are no bugs in the no longer tall grass to eat.
Sometimes...we have to do things that we hate...for the greater good.
Always B. Positive
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