My Leaf Harem

You might remember my discussion a couple of weeks back about the amount of leaves in our yard. As you can imagine, the amount has grown.

Let me make a brief aside here. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. I love this season and I love that it represents itself thousands of times a day all over my property. Honestly. I only keep writing about this because it’s topical and kind of fun (crazy?).

With that, let’s get back to the present. Rosalie saw an ad in our community newspaper for free leaf cleanups. FREE LEAF CLEANUPS. A local university was dispatching a crew to do good deeds and hopefully solicit donations. We jumped at the chance and scheduled a time for the following weekend.

Rose had to work that Saturday so I was home alone with the boys when they arrived. And boy did they arrive. A giant blue van pulled up in front of our house filled with 15 or so college girls. All. Girls. So I walk down the driveway and an older woman shakes my hand an introduces herself as “Sister Katherine” (real name withheld to protect the innocent). It’s at this point that I remember that the University is both Catholic and almost entirely female.

So yeah. 15 girls and a nun were ready to clean up my leaves. For free.

You can imagine what this did to my as yet unformed reputation in the neighborhood (like I care. Kind of.). Getting young women and the vocationed to do my yard work for me.

And boy did they work. They filled 20 giant yard waste bags in like 20 minutes and could’ve filled 20 more. I couldn’t believe it. In reality, Vincent and I were out there helping most of the time (until Peter woke up – then it was all over) so at least we chipped in. I think I even said, “I hope this isn’t just for the elderly because I’d feel really bad to have taken your time.” Sister Katherine assured me that it was for “anyone and everyone that needed the help. And wimps like you, Jim.”

After 45 minutes, they were on their way with a donation check in their hands and the image of Vincent and Peter waving goodbye to them. Since then, more and more leaves have fallen and you can bet your ass I’m going to clean them up myself.

Unless… hey, maybe I can get Vincent’s school friends and a Franciscan monk to come over.

P.S.: We left 48 bags of leaves for the township pickup day yesterday. During this past week, Rosalie bagged 20 of them herself during the days she didn't have to go into work. So that makes 20 bags filled by the college girls + nun, 20 by Rosalie and 8 for me.

It's good to be the emasculated king.