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What About This…? 5.1.2014

By Wayne William Cipriano

I dislike raking leaves. I don’t much like any yard work, but I really hate raking leaves. We don’t burn them. We live on the top of a hill so we rake the leaves into a long strip of canvas and sort of toboggan them into the weeds all around us.

By not burning the leaves I escape the ignominy of a front yard fire growing into a threat against the house that our children, blessed as they are with total recall and unforgiving natures, would never stop reminiscing nor giggling about.

The other day, when you remember the wind blowing as hard as it was, the leaves piled up against the cars in the carport. A lot of wind, a lot of leaves. That was when I had my flash of insight!

What if the cars were out of the carport before the wind stopped blowing? Why, the wind would rake the leaves for me. No matter what direction a strong wind came from the leaves would eventually be blown downhill into the weeds, never to return.

Presto! The carport is free of leaves. No raking required! What a beautiful plan! Why didn’t I think of this before?

I explain my strategy to a doubting Rosalie. The very next strong wind will clear out the carport without any effort on my part, except driving the cars out. We just need a little patience. We don’t use the carport that much any way. Next big wind –– leaflessness!

What can possibly go wrong with a plan like that?

So, it is two-thirty in the morning, and Rosalie nudges me awake, saying, “The wind is blowing. Move the cars.”