If I am the cause, I apologize. If it is me who has ruined the environment, poisoned the drinking supply, caused a tear in the ozone layer like a run in stockings, and dried up the schools of tuna who used to swim the oceans free, then to future generations I say I’m sorry.
I’m a bad man who doesn’t follow directions.
It’s spring, so I’m out fighting bugs, fungus, grubs, clover, root rot, jumping circus beetles, a clan of armed, horse-riding Turks and strange crop circles in my grass that read: “Land the mother ship here!”
Actually, it’s mainly just clover, and I’ve waged war on it with some clover killer I wrangled up down at the hardware store.
Not that I know what I’m doing, and certainly the packaging is no help. Look, there’s only so much of these directions and warnings you can read on a bottle of pesticide or weed killer before you throw up your hands and shout, “Mama mia, that’s a lot of meatballs!”
I look for big warnings — warnings I can relate to: “Has been known to cause cancer in laboratory rats AS WELL AS extra limbs growing from their rumps, talking like Michael Jackson and giving money to the IRS.”
Oh, man. Better wear gloves!
Not that I pay attention much. I mix these things into such strange concoctions using highly questionable containers and sprayers that just the week before held other high-threat toxins. And I wonder why blue puffs of smoke like laughing dragons race off into the atmosphere.
I never get the mix right. You need physics and algebra, and I failed third grade math. It tells you, “For 500 square feet of yard at a 10 percent grade with a train arriving from Hyannis at 3:22 p.m., take the square root of 14 and multiply it by 3 oz. Then add 1 gallon of water and shake well.”
Well, I don’t have a gallon sprayer. I have some sprayer that only holds 32 ounces. So figure that mix out, Mr. Smartypants.
I consult the New York Public Library Desk Reference for measurement conversions and find that I must first turn ounces into pints, then into kegs. Then it tells me to multiply by 6, add a teaspoon of sugar, convert it into Chinese ounces and voila! The answer is 3.
The answer is 3? Three what? I don’t know what the heck I’ve figured out. Miffed, I just start pouring into the container. No idea how much, no concern for what my actions may bring. I pour until the fumes start to tickle my nose and I get woozy.
I add water, shake vigorously and attack my yard.
By this point, the substance has eaten through the plastic and is running down my legs. Ooops! The hair is instantly evaporated, and that can’t be a good thing.
Recently, I’ve started using a sprayer that attaches to my garden hose. I’ve met with considerable difficulties from the Yard Gods who laugh at me. For starters, I always seem to spring a leak that sprays highly toxic poison over my, how should I say?, private region. And then I spray the yard only to realize I’ve painted myself into a corner. Coming to this realization is quite demoralizing, and with the yard sizzling from the toxins I’ve sprayed on it, I plop down and wait for it to dry.
“Don’t worry, honey,” I call out to my wife. “It says in three weeks the grass will be walkable again. Until then, I’ll just gnaw on this piece of tree bark.”
She is wearing a gas mask and has poison control on the line.
I will say this: My clover is dying and my grass does appear to be alive. The yard’s looking up. I’ll take some comfort in that, as well as my measurement skills. But if you’ll excuse me, I need to go trim the fingernails on that extra limb that appears to be growing from my backside.