I am using my column this week to officially request proposals from top inventors around the world who are prepared to bring to market (and more importantly, me!) a product that will revolutionize landscaping forever. The proposal I am requesting is for the world’s first … wait for it … Pop-Up Yard™. (That’s good, right? A yard that you can buy to replace your own brown, weed-ridden, unkempt winter yard. Don’t try to steal the idea. It’s trademarked.)
Guidelines for proposals will be addressed below. This is a competitive bidding process, and all proposals will be judged on their merit, as well as their ability to submit documentation that does not have any food spills or stains on it. Good luck and I look forward to your ideas.
1. The Pop-Up Yard should be easy to install. I am envisioning something akin to a bouncy house that you hook up to a giant inflator. Or possibly something you unroll across your weed-covered, mangy-looking landscape, revealing a bright, shiny green oasis of spring-time wonder. Extra points will be given for proposals including hummingbirds, the scent of jasmine and a device that prevents my dog from relieving herself in the EXACT!!! location where my morning newspaper lands.
2. The Pop-Up Yard shall require no watering. I have a multitude of long hoses and water spigots strategically placed throughout my yard. However, I have no intention of using them. I hate watering. It has nothing to do with the environment or water conservation. That’s all well and good. But for me it’s simple laziness. In fact, I’ve been known to go out and perform a 3-hour rain dance before I even consider unspooling a hose to water a fern a foot away. So the Pop-Up Yard must require zero human interaction in order to supply H20. I have no idea what osmosis means, but try that.
3. The Pop-Up Yard will repel leaves. How this will be done is your problem. Magnets. Fans. Lasers. Little woodland critters who scoop them up and dump them on the neighbor’s car? It’s not my concern. All I know is Florida trees think it is mighty funny to rain down leaves year round. I’m sick of raking. Almost as sick as I am of hearing my wife say things like this: “So … maybe we should hire a neighbor boy to rake these leaves.” Translation: “You are a lazy slouch and our yard looks like a diseased compost pile.”
4. The Pop-Up Yard must be weed-free. This is also important to prevent wives from saying things like: “So … maybe we should hire a neighbor boy …” which roughly translated means: “So … what exactly do you DO around here?!?”
5. The Pop-Up Yard must be ready within the next week. That’s the timeframe I promised my wife I would do some raking, weeding and general tending to my mangy yard so we don’t have to hire a neighbor boy. This “promise” seemed like an OK idea when I made it. Mainly to save face, and my dignity. Now that I have to make good on it, “dignity” seems like a lot of work.
So I am calling on the world’s greatest inventors to do the work for me. Go to your drawing boards! Create the first-ever Pop-Up Yard™! The first to do it will become richer than any man alive. There are a lot of husbands out there making yard promises they can’t possibly keep.