Fall Confetti/Kid Satan
You know what I don't miss? Raking leaves. I have like five huge trees that dump leaves every fall. It can be quite a mess, and it can be quite the pain to clean them up. Now I just drive over them with the lawn mower. What's left behind looks like thousands of little orange and yellow pieces of confetti all over the yard, and it breaks down really quickly. I'm officially done with yard maintenance for the year.

My neighbor across the street has one small tree. He could be out there with a rake and pushing the leaves under a bush or something. I mean, it's a pathetic tree. It's not even ten feet tall. It would take him like five minutes. Or better yet, he could just leave them there, and they'd break down by spring. Instead, he's out there for an hour with a gas-powered handheld, sucking up leaves.

His lawn is always pristine. He's one of these guys who can't stand disorder on his property. Really anal.

He also shovels his roof in the winter. I see him up there in January with a metal shovel, pushing the snow off of the roof. I guess nothing told him that roofs are slanted for a reason. And yes, he's destroyed the shingles a couple of times. He re-roofed his house just last summer, in fact. You think he'd get smart and use a push broom. I'm waiting for him to fall off the roof and break his neck.

It doesn't bother me, but I find it amusing that I have this neighbor who is such a neat freak. And it's even funnier that the guy right next door doesn't ever do any yard work. He mows his lawn every other month, whether it needs it or not. He breaks out the lawnmower right as it begins to look like a rain forest.

===========

So, I was getting the house ready for Thanksgiving this year. Not exactly my favorite holiday, but it's convenient family time. Around here, we appreciate the aesthetic, but you won't find us joining hands and paying thanks to the pilgrims. It's more a chance for me and the kids to get together and talk shit over a game of Mario Kart. My niece Shannon is SUCH a trash-talker. *sniff* She makes me so proud.

So, in the process of cleaning up the house, I found my old high school health class baby. If you don't know what his is, there's a unit in health class where we have to carry around a "baby". It could either be something fragile, like an egg (eww!), approximately 18" long, or it could be five pounds.

Well, I'm not carrying around a fucking egg, and I certainly wasn't going to lug five extra pounds around school, so I found a long cardboard box, wrapped it in duct tape, and dubbed it Kid Satan. I drew a child's body on the front with Gene Simmons face paint. It was light as a feather, durable, and, best of all, waterproof! Well, for the most part. The front that had the drawing on it was paper, but I would simply hold it face down in the rain. I was such a good parent!

The rules of the assignment were that I had to keep it with me at all times or leave it with a "sitter". I had to tend to it and schedule regular feedings and naps. We got a pass during school hours, because we weren't supposed to disrupt other classes while tending to our fake babies, but outside of school, we were supposed to take care of it like a real child.

Well, I never did any of this. It was designed so that I could toss it in a corner as soon as I got home, and there it stayed until I had to leave in the morning. I went out all the time and left it home. If someone saw me without it, they could snitch on me, but I had a contingency plan for that, and I never ran into anyone from class anyway. Chances are, they were all following class procedure, anyway, and were thus too embarrassed to leave the house.

What a dumb assignment, anyway. I think we had to write out a synopsis of each night we had the child. I just made shit up, which is ultimately what you have to do anyway. It's not like this thing could really cry. You had to MAKE THAT PART UP! So, it was an easy grade that required no effort other than writing a synopsis during study hall, immediately prior to health class. Really dumb.

The fact that this thing still exists is a testament to its durability. Nothing short of being run over by a car would have damaged this thing. And even then, I'm certain I could have repaired it without any visible damage.

I should post a picture of it some time. Unfortunately, I can't seem to locate the camera. It's truly a work of art.