A Captive Gardener

There are three things my mother likes to do in the summer. One: watch tennis matches in the morning. Two: make some sort of easy family size dish that we can eat at any point in time. In the past popular dishes have been pasta salad, bean salad, and chili. The third thing is to garden. This isn’t just planting new flowers and watering the lawn like most people. This is massive weeding. Our yard just happens to be the place where tap-root weeds want to reproduce. Since this is Washington, the summer is the only time when it would be appropriate to sit outside for a day, so the weeds blanket the dirt for the other ten months of the year.

     The first spot of sun my mother saw this year, she decided to start the laborious work, and I just happened to be available. Usually I can find a way to dance around the chore by going to a friend’s home or by finishing a book I’m “almost done with”. But today I was as free as a bird and my mother wanted to place me in a cage. Once I was roped into it by pity and boredom, I found myself at the worst job in the joint. Yes, she assigned me the work of trimming the fern. This might not sound too bad, but this fern, this one fern at the edge of the driveway...was not a fern. It was a monster waiting to pounce and swallow you whole at any second. Secrets filled it’s crevices and I was in no mood to find out what they were. Through massive snipping in multiple and random directions I managed to make a dent. Two hours later I had slayed the beast. I stripped off my gloves and emptied my bucket of remnants proud to finish victorious. I was almost to the garage door, just about to untie the laces of my scuffed shoes when I heard the worst question any one could ask someone; she blurted out the words innocently, as I was captured in the corner of her eye…

“What are you doing?”

     I was doomed. Not only do you have to answer the question, but it’s obvious what you are doing so there is no weaseling out of it. You can’t shrug it off like a silly comment, you can’t keep walking, and if you do you might as well just sign the contract to your imprisonment for the rest of eternity. I scuffled back into the yard and picked a spot that was reasonable enough to finish quickly but had just the right amount of crowded weeds to look like I made a difference. My mother spoke a short speech about how a garden is a responsibility to a homeowner. In my head all I could think was, “This isn’t my house! You didn’t have to buy it! These aren’t my plants, I only picked out about five plants on this property!” But of course I sat there willingly pulling and piling until a fine amount of time went by and I was granted permission to leave the property.

     After the day the garden did look better and I still had energy to stay up to watch a movie. I guess it’s best to keep your mouth shut sometimes, otherwise I think I might still be weeding.