Hoserita,
Thanks for the tour. Looks like you two made a lot of nice
animal friends.
Did you ever find out what that thing was on the rocks?
Anyhow, when ever I read something that mentions Canada, I
think of you.
Here's what I read yesterday:
Posted on Sun, Jan. 11, 2004
Guys: It's time to turn over a new leaf blower
DAVE BARRY
Have you ever wondered why the entire world runs so
smoothly? The answer is: Guys.
Don't get me wrong: I have the deepest respect for women.
My own wife is a woman. But when things need to get done,
you cannot beat the results you get when guys swing into
action.
For an excellent example, we turn now to a news story from
The Greenville (S.C.) News, written by John Boyanoski and
sent in by alert reader Michael Ester. The story concerns a
guy -- let's call him Guy A -- who had a problem: There
were leaves in his yard. So he fired up his leaf blower.
Leaf blowers are the ideal guy tool, because they have
engines, they're loud, and they enable you to blast debris,
ray-gun-style, from one place to another without having to
actually pick it up. I'm willing to bet that somewhere in
America, there's a guy who, at least once, cleaned his
living room by firing up his leaf blower indoors and
blasting everything -- pizza boxes, beer cans, ancient
potato-chip shards, underwear, deceased spiders -- into a
less-critical area, such as the dining room. (This guy is
not married.)
But getting back to our story, which I am not making up:
Guy A, taking action, used his leaf blower to blow the
leaves off of his property. Problem solved!
Except that the leaves wound up in the yard of another guy.
Let's call him Guy B. He now had leaves in HIS yard. What
do you think he should have done about this? Should he have
asked Guy A, politely but firmly, to remove the leaves?
Should he have avoided a potential confrontation by picking
them up himself? Or should he have decided that life is
too short to be bothered by this kind of petty annoyance,
and simply ignored the leaves?
If you answered ''yes'' to any of these solutions, you are,
with all due respect, a woman. What Guy B did, according
to the Greenville County sheriff's department report, was
the same thing that roughly 175 percent of the guys reading
this column would have done: He fired up HIS leaf blower,
and he blew the leaves back onto the yard of Guy A.
So now the leaves were back where they started. This was a
crucial moment -- a moment when some people, realizing that
nothing good was going to come of this situation, would
have said the heck with it. But these were not ''some
people.'' These were guys, and when guys start a job, guys
want to finish it, no matter what. That is how we got the
pyramids, the interstate highway system, and World Wars I
and II.
So Guy A blew the leaves back onto Guy B's yard. This left
Guy B with no choice but to blow the leaves back onto Guy
A's yard, leaving Guy A with no choice but to blow the
leaves back into Guy B's yard, and so on. They played leaf-
blower tennis for a while, until apparently it dawned on
them how silly this was. And so, according to the sheriff's
report, as recounted in the Greenville News, ``they started
blowing air in each other's face.''
From there, things went downhill. According to the
sheriff's department report, Guy B claimed that Guy A head-
butted him. Guy A claimed that Guy B hit his leaf blower
with a hammer AND knocked his dust mask off, scratching his
nose. (Yes: Guy A wore a dust mask. It's important to
follow leaf-blower safety guidelines.)
Finally a sheriff's deputy was called to the scene of the
dispute; after listening to the two sides, he shot both
guys in the head, to improve the gene pool.
No, really, the deputy couldn't determine who was at fault,
so he decided not to charge either guy. I don't know what
the situation is now, but it would not surprise me to find
out that both guys -- having learned a valuable lesson
about how a stupid little dispute can escalate into a
potentially dangerous situation -- have purchased bigger
leaf blowers.
Speaking of which: A LOT of leaves get blown onto the
United States from Canada. When are we going to fight back?
When will the Defense Department launch a project to
develop a tactical nuclear leaf blower, code-named
Screaming Wind?
Until that happens, I urge you guys in northern states to
grab your leaf blowers, organize into units and patrol the
Canadian border, intercepting incoming leaves and blasting
them back where they belong. You should wear camouflage.
Also, of course, dust masks. No point in taking chances.
miami.com
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-Clapper |
