Local Woman Menaced by Well Known Crime Family

Dateline Randle- A local woman reported to police that she was being stalked and harassed by the Cucuritacea Family--specifically an individual known as “Cucurbita Pepo.”

“I went out of town after starting an outdoor home improvement project,” the woman reported, “And when I came back Cucurbita Pepo had moved in!” She went on to describe him as “creepy” in habit, and “palmately lobed” with “small prickly trichomes”---which, to be honest, this reporter was unfamiliar with those terms--but immediately I locked my doors and windows. Because you can never be too careful, am I right?

The Randle woman, who asked not to be identified, stated that she, too, had taken all the normal precautions: locking her car doors when vising friends, keeping both doors and windows secured at all times, especially in late summer. Even with her heightened state of awareness the victim claims she had already fought off numerous advances by Pepo. “My friends keep saying ‘perhaps he’s not that bad, maybe you should give him a chance,’” the woman stated, tears welling in her eyes, “but I know his type. He just won’t quit.”

This investigative reporter visited the woman’s home and sure enough—there at the site of the victim’s project was Cucurbita Pepo. It seemed that merely disturbing the soil when installing a post was enough of an invitation to Pepo.

When I contacted the police department, they declined to comment on the record. “These things have a way of working themselves out, given time,” said an officer that asked not to be identified. “I imagine that by the time the first frost rolls around Mr. Pepo will have moved on.”

The officer then offered me a zucchini muffin. Clearly, the roots of this conspiracy of Cucurbita runs deep!

Three Hundred Feet, MacGyver Edition

What do you do if you’ve spontaneously—some might say rashly—purchased ALL THE THINGS necessary to put in a “do-it-yourself” home irrigation system for your flowerbeds, and then realized half way thru that the “doing it yourself” part requires more grip-and-shove strength than you possess?

I believe I have already established that I am puny when it comes to upper body strength. Not puny enough that you should worry about me in the event of a zombie apocalypse---trust me, I’m strong enough to fight zombies—but puny enough that people often feel obliged to come lift heavy things for me. Who knew I was too puny to shove one little double-ended joiner thingy into a tiny little ¼” line thingy, far enough so that it wouldn’t leak? IT DID NOT LOOK THAT DIFFICULT WHEN I SAW IT DONE.

It’s often been said—and one more than one occasion it’s been said TO me---that you give the laziest person the hardest job and they will find the easiest way to do it. One could argue—and on more than one occasion I HAVE—that the lazy person in question is actually a SMART person for figuring out how to simplify the problem at hand. My problem currently was that the ¼” plastic water line was tougher than I was. I needed to soften it up...Cue hot pink embossing gun.

For those of you that didn’t spend the better part of this millennium crafting I’ll just explain an embossing gun this way: it works exactly like a heat tool/paint stripper, but it’s marketed to crafters—mostly women—comes in hot pink, and probably costs more than your gray, old, boring Black & Decker one. I figured out that a three second blast with my hot pink embossing gun would warm up the ¼” line enough that that joiner thingies would slip right in.

Alas, most of my flowerbeds are not located near my craft room.

Thankfully, my garage is full of 100 ft lengths of heavy-duty orange extension cord. Best of all, the hot pink and the orange looked really good together. Now if you’d just fill the trenches in for me, you could call me Tom Sawyer-MacGyver, and we could call this project D-O-N-E.

300 Feet

If you were to have wandered into my backyard last Sunday, you might have wondered just what it was I was doing with three hundred feet of heavy-duty orange extension cord and a hot pink embossing gun. And I would have been happy to explain it to you, right after I Tom Sawyered you into helping me.

It was brought to my attention earlier this summer—right around the time I realized I had agreed to go away on vacation for a week in July with giving nary a thought to how I would keep my flowers alive in the summer heat—side note: how cute was it I thought summer would have heat/sunshine? Anyway, back to the point: I realized I needed an irrigation system to water in my absence.

Home improvement stores carry lots of really nifty home irrigation stuff for the do-it-yourselfer. All of it looks simple, and non-threatening, and there are so many cool little add-ons and accessories---look! ¼” baby soaker hose! Adjustable mini sprinkler heads that spray in a 180* pattern! 90 degrees! 360! Color-coded button drippers! In-line drippers! BUY ALL THE THINGS!!

So, I bought all the things. And some more things. And went back for more of the elbow things and the t-joint things and it turns out I probably should have bought more of the end-cap thingies, because things have to END...

Anyway, its been fun and “not that hard”—especially because I had help with the digging the trench part. Spoiler alert: By help, I mean I did not dig the trench.

The one part that turned out to be more difficult than it looked was the “joining the pieces” part. I saw it done—you just take the poker-thingy and poke a hole in the ½” pipe thingy, then stick the tiny, little joiner-double-ended thingy into the hole you just poked, and into the 1/4” line thingy and then attach that line to whatever button dripper or sprayer you’ve selected, and also attach a stick-it-in-the-ground-sticker thingy and, voila! It didn’t look that hard.

And it wasn’t---IF you have the type of hand strength where you crack walnuts with just a little squeeze AND NO NUT CRACKER. Second spoiler alert: I buy nuts already cracked.

Enter the hot pink embossing gun.

Who Knew?

I was all prepared to write a long rant where I complained—in a highly entertaining way, of course—about “The Weekend Deluge That Flattened My Petunias,” followed by a shorter soliloquy on “The Plague of Slugs and Grasshoppers, Nibbling My Flowers,” but then this happened:

 I woke up to a beautifully sunny day, and—tea cup in hand, slug poking stick in the other-- strolled out to my gardens. There were the Stargazer lilies I planted for the first Sume wedding, in full, glorious bloom. The lilies that I hadn’t seen bloom since that time, the lilies that every summer since have been turned into elk chow. Lilies that I have only enjoyed a seeing only bloom or two before they were destroyed by rampaging elk. And oh, let me tell you, they smell divine! The lilies, of course, not the elk. Elk stink.

I came back into my house, already re-writing in my head, singing the praises of having a fence! Who knew that lilies could have that many blooms per stalk? Who knew a fence could be that effective? Ok, so maybe everybody that already had a fence knew the answers to both of those questions, but now I know! I will tell everyone! I shall be come a fence evangelist, and travel about the county preaching the Good News and Many Benefits of Fence Having! I shall convert the masses! Fence building will become all the rage, everyone will have one! Elk will become so discouraged that they will swear off domesticated plant eating and eat only dandelions and scotch broom from now on! Anything is now, not only possible, but probable!

Editor’s Note: The odds are currently two to one that Sue’s giddy optimism will last through the first three molehills that appear in her yard. Place your wagers today.