|
Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. Weed killer of the Old East by J. G. Fabiano. Does anyone remember the days when you could tell the difference between a weed and something you wanted to grow? It used to be real easy. The weed was always ugly. It had pointed leaves that stayed close to the ground and usually had needles all over it so that if you attempted to pull it from the ground you were destined to be in pain. Some even secreted a toxic fluid so that when you tried to pull it out of the ground you felt like you'd dipped your hands in bucket of acid. Soon afterwards your hands would turn all red and be covered in a kind of pox that would only disappear after the first snowfall of winter. Today's weeds are totally different. They now look like something planted deliberately in order to beautify one's property. Of course they still secrete the same toxic fluid that stopped my fingernails growing years ago but they now have flowers on them and mimic the very plants they are destined to kill. The other day I was watering my flowerbeds when my neighbor came over and asked what I was doing. I told him I wanted to make sure that the plants that I had grown from bulbs would grow to look like the photos on the packets that the bulbs came in. He gave me the same kind of look he has given me many times before then started to laugh. I asked him what his problem was and he told me the plants that I was caring for were weeds. He then enlightened me to the fact that for the past few years what I thought were plants were indeed a type of weed. I had no idea that clover was considered a weed. What I thought was the Irish part of my lawn was really a crop of green lawn killing machines that literally took over one whole side of my house. He showed me that the thick blanket of vines that I was so proud of a few minutes before was something that the rest of my neighbors took great pains to eliminate. I then asked him about the flowers that appeared on the vine. He told me the flowers had nothing to do with the weed but were rather a type of fungus that most people were warned never to go near. This moment of enlightenment explained a lot about the head rash I have been suffering through for the past few years. For the next hour my neighbor then took me on a tour of my own garden during which he pointed out that what I thought were various kinds of vegetable plants that never produced any vegetables were really a type of weed that was only thought to live south of the Equator. The lilies I thought I had planted many years ago were simply some scrub weed that most people pull out long before they reach a height of five feet. He then asked me if I ever wondered why what I thought were lilies never flowered. I told him I thought I had planted them on the wrong side of the house. As we walked out to my garden he pointed to an area where I thought there were tomato plants. I assured him that I knew that these were not weeds but then he showed me that the tomato plant I had put in the ground a few weeks earlier was embedded in a kind of vine that looked like a tomato plant. It even had yellow flowers on it destined never to produce any fruit. As my neighbor went back to his house laughing I decided that I was going to get rid of all the weeds that surrounded my house and in my garden once and for all. I'm a smart guy and how tough could it be with all the new biogenetic technology I have read about. The next day I drove over to my favorite hardware store. This is my favorite store because they still allow me to buy things even after I ran over two or three of their chimeneas as I backed up my truck to load some fertilizer. At least I think they know it was me. I asked the gentleman behind the counter to recommend something I could use to get rid of the weeds that had taken over my yard. He showed me a biogenetically-engineered chemical that was guaranteed to rid my yard of anything that even resembled a weed. It came in a large plastic container that had a big red "X" on the front. The container had a big black nozzle and a pump that made it look like a giant evil bottle of Windex. It was also wrapped in a thick plastic bag. I never buy anything that is wrapped in a thick plastic bag anymore. I was so ecstatic that I would finally have the upper hand against my newest of arch enemies that I bought two of them. The gentleman behind the counter, who once told me that having me come into the store was one of his favorite times of the week, advised that I buy a few pairs of gloves, a couple of masks, and a hat that I could throw away after I had finished the task. Remembering my beetle experiences of the past I decided to take his advice and buy the recommended items. I decided to go to work liberating my property of anything that was related to the weed family as soon as I got home. I put on the hat, gloves and mask, put two of the bottles of super stuff in my pockets and walked out into my garden with trigger in hand, ready to kill what I had previously thought I had planted. I felt like a lawman of the 'Old West' ready to do battle with the evil outlaws. The first weed I saw was hiding in my squash patch. At least I thought it was my squash patch. I aimed the nozzle so that I could cover the green menace with the biogenetically-engineered slime and watch it die before my eyes. It worked! I think the plant actually gave out a faint scream as it turned brown before my eyes. At that moment I had thought I had won. All I had to do was spray anything that looked odd to me and I would be rid of all my weeds in an hour. Then one of my squash plants started to turn brown. At first I thought I must have sprayed a bit too much of the stuff and some may have fallen on the now-dying plant. Then another one of my squash plants hit the ground as all of its color faded away. One after another my vegetable plants died in front of me. First the beans fell to the ground as though I had just mowed them under, then the tomato plants fell limp inside their cage. My peas, lettuce, eggplant, peppers, and basil shuddered before they fell to the ground. The only things that were left were the weeds! I then noticed a brown patch that started to expand out of the garden into my lawn. It grew larger and larger as though an army of grubs was attacking my lawn. At first I was frozen in fear that I had just started a chain reaction that might very well destroy the world's food chain. After the initial shock, I ran into my garage and grabbed a shovel, thinking that if I cut a deep trench around the menacing brown spot I could stop the destruction of everything green. I dug a trench around the garden and across the lawn as though my life depended on it. Part of me thought maybe it did. Then I waited to see if my plan would worked. It didn't. At that moment I knew I was doomed. Then I felt the spray of water coming from behind my back. I knew it couldn't be rain because the flow of the water was horizontal. It was also a bright cloudless sunny day. I looked around and saw my now-laughing hysterically neighbor watering the brown spot and thus effectively stopping what I had started. The next day, walking to my car after I had bought grass seed from my favorite hardware store, the gentleman behind the counter called out to ask if I wanted to buy a chimenea. I guess he knew! The End
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
