Lessons Learned

Today my husband, daughter and I vacuumed leaves out of three yards.  The first two yards were no problem – the third was truly the yard from hell.  The house is on Lake Shore Drive, not far from the hot water ditch and the front yard is a steep hill, a paradise for mountain goats and other four-legged agile creatures, not meant for lowly two-legged critters unless they have wings, while the back yard is terraced into three sections.  I’ve never seen so many leaves in one yard in my life!  The leaves were literally two feet deep in several nooks and crannies and three to four inches thick everywhere else.  The front yard was a broken hip waiting to happen.  I slipped and slid down the hill a few times – though somehow I didn’t go so far as to flip over the concrete retaining wall.  It got me to thinking of the many interesting projects I’ve gotten myself involved with in my husband’s business.

It’s hard to rate the absolute worst job we’ve done – it’s a toss up between heat stroke and hypothermia.  But it’s safe to say that I always pay the bigger price.  My husband will take on just about any job for money.  I’m much more selective and usually just let him find another relative or friend to con into helping him.  I steer clear for the most part but I have had my moments of insanity when I’ve volunteered.

There was the job of clearing out the back lot of a gas station on the corner of Eldorado and Main.  We moved old tires, piles of garbage, vehicle parts, leaves, several feet of composted dirt and other debris.  We also had to pull weeds out of the cracked parking lot and haul several loads of branches in a small trailer pulled by our old orange Chevette to our house.  My husband, and his wonderful business sense, quoted the job at a whole $100!  I made $50 that day for 10 hours of back breaking work and a few months later they tore down that stupid gas station and built a new one!

Then there was the time we pulled weeds from the hill of a lakeside home – on Lake Shore Drive again.  I’m beginning to hate Lake Shore Drive.  It was 95 degrees outside and I don’t know what I was thinking taking on so much work on such a hot day but I did and I paid dearly for it.  We hauled branches up the hill, up a flight of steps and threw them in the back of the truck – at least at that time we had upgraded from the Chevette.  The silliest thing was that the homeowner wanted all of the “weeds” pulled from the hill but I don’t think she realized that those plants were keeping her hill from eroding into the lake but the customer is always right – though I find they’re more crazy than right, more times than not.

I wasn’t exactly sane myself for taking on the work in the first place though I paced myself that day.  I kept myself hydrated but by the evening I was not feeling good at all.  When I got home I couldn’t cool myself down.  I took a cold shower.  It did nothing.  My skin was still hot to the touch.  I put a bag of ice on my head.  It didn’t do any good.  I couldn’t get my body temperature down and I didn’t have the strength to walk to the car to get to the hospital.  The only strength I had was to throw up and go back to bed.  I didn’t move a muscle in that bed for 14 hours.  I woke up in the same position as I had fallen asleep.  It was truly a horrible and frightening experience – near death experiences always are I assume.  Now, I no longer work outside when it’s 95 degrees.

Then there was the time when I mowed Park 101 in the sleet and snow for five hours.  This was early in my husband’s lawn mowing business and we really didn’t have the right equipment to take on so much property and apparently we didn’t have enough brains to know, you don’t mow in the snow.  I did pretty well. The cold doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the heat.  But there did come a point when I realized I was becoming quite delusional.  It no longer felt cold to me.  I no longer felt anything!  I did have the sense to say, enough was enough, and decided my life was worth more than some stupid grass, so I quit before I slipped into a coma.  But that night I remained frozen. Even with four blankets piled on top of me, my thighs were still freezer burnt.  I shivered for three hours but at least I didn’t get sick.  I was just cold.  But now I no longer mow in the snow.

I guess that’s what age does for you.  If you survive all of the stupid things you did when you were younger, you begin to know better.  But then again, here I am sore from head to toe for some stupid leaves.  Another lesson learned.  Pretty soon, I’ll just stick to my front porch, my dog and a good drink and enjoy the sound of blowing leaves – though my neighbors may not appreciate my newly found wisdom.