Cindy is the master gardener who planned and landscaped our yard two years ago. We recently called her in to tame the wildness of our black dirt garden, which has gotten so overgrown that we can barely make it out the front door and down the walk.
Gary and I had ‘words’ over who would be here to greet Cindy; we always have words over this and he always wins because he works full time and I do not. He also pays the bills, so he has clear moral superiority here, as we cannot pay her unless he works. A lot. She is expensive. And did I mention scary? We are both afraid of her (hence the need for ‘words’). Cindy is a tall, slender, seasoned by the sun woman who piles out of her vehicle and heads straight for our bushes, clipboard and pruning shears in hand. Sometimes she even remembers to say hello.
This visit was even scarier than most, not helped by the fact that Bo and Wally, our two wild doodles, jump up and happily paint her pants with mud. She is not so happy, with them or me, but after only a question or two about our inability to train our dogs, says, “Oh, my God. What the heck happened here?” (Translation: can’t you two boobs manage your own garden?) “I left instructions.” I nod wordlessly and a little quiver starts in my feet. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “Gary was supposed to get the instructions out for me this Spring and he didn’t. “ (HA! Take that, Gary. She is gonna hate you worse than me before I’m done.) “And it’s our black dirt,” I add. “ I kill plants. I really do. But everything just grows here. I can’t stop it. I can’t. Really.” I launch into a funny little story about my plant killing tendencies. She is not amused, not even a little. “Hmph,” she says.
She walks around the house, shaking her head in despair. “THINGS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GROW LIKE THIS!” The quiver moves from my feet into my legs. I look at my watch, thinking our hour must be almost up. Five minutes have passed.
“Oh,my. Oh, my. Oh, my.” She began waving her arms over the irises. “These are not supposed to grow like this! What have you done?” Nothing, I think. That’s the problem. I don’t say it though, because I am afraid of her. I nod again, hoping it is a meek nod, one that will gain a bit of sympathy from her for the poor stupid part time social worker who had better be more effective with people than she is with plants. I hate Gary. Arm waving continues over the viburnum, the Redbud tree, the asters, the peonies.....
I do not understand why this hour is taking so long when whole days of my life fly by in seconds. But eventually we work our way around the house with exclamations and head shakes from her and protestations of innocence from me. I sigh with relief when I notice that our time is almost up. “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!,” she suddenly screams. I turn quickly, wondering if it’s a bear or a rattlesnake or even, this being Chester, NY, a Bigfoot. My heart is pounding. She is standing with her head clasped in both hands, “Oh, no, no, no. This can’t be.” She sounds like she is going to cry.
“What?” I yell, scanning for whatever danger is waiting to get us. “What’s wrong?”
“You have an invasive species of grass in your woods. It will kill everything back there.” She moans softly. “This is just terrible. You need to take your weed whacker out there and hack it all down.” Mind you, ‘out there’ is filled with snakes and ticks and bear poop. No way in hell am I going back there. As a matter of fact I think I may transplant some of that stuff to the front to kill everything out there. Problem solved.
A few days later Susan brings her husband back to help her dig out some over our overgrown plants with Latin names I can’t pronounce. He shakes my hand so hard I almost drop to my knees. Nope, I decide after I stop crying. No way am I gonna tell her no, about anything. She can do whatever the hell she wants, which I am sure is going to cost a lot of money. Which Gary will have to pay for by working, which means I have to stay home with Cindy. I really do hate him.
