‘Leaf’ me alone

Oh no, I can sense it is that time of year again. I’m too resilient to let a little cold weather on the horizon scare me, and I am too old to have to worry about youngsters heading back to school. So what is it that causes sweat to spontaneously break out on my brow, my spine to crawl, and my knees to turn to jello (or is that my gut) – millions of falling tree leaves of course.

Yes I love Nat King Cole and his ultra-smooth, wistful rendition of the Johnny Mercer classic tune, Autumn leaves, but that is as far as I go with my limited love affair with leaves. Leaves in the fall are akin to that car load of junk-foodie fat kids driving in front of you littering. You know those kids, they are the ones throwing an endless supply of Twinkie, Zinger, and Ding Dong wrappers out the car window, and that is just their shameless birth control packaging.

At the first hint of cooler temperatures, why is it ok for cowardly trees to turn ‘yellow’ and just spontaneously start casting off their outerwear everywhere? Funny, the whole world books expensive airplane tickets to see that show, but when I strip in public, people always run away in fear and call the cops? I also don’t know why I am expected to clean-up after trees when it is obvious that THEY were the ones who decided to BRANCH out and make a mess, not me.

Is this Mother Nature’s best effort at raising her spawn, by letting them ‘blow-off’ their responsibility and throw leafy caution to the wind, then expecting we earth immigrants to pick-up the grounds after them? I think it’s clear my trees need Nanny McPhee to set them straight, and stop my leaves from TURNING even further to the ‘bark’ side. So wish me luck over the next 6 weeks – I’ll be the guy being RESPONSIBLE and doing the heavy lifting for my lazy good- for-nothing trees. Yes it takes an awful lot of skill, character, and hard work to AIM a gas chipper and leaf blower into my neighbor’s yard!