What's Up With That?

by Tom Kuzeja - April 5, 1999

What's Up With That?

Happy Birthday, Spring

January is such a cold time for New Year's. I think April is the earliest we should even consider celebrating. The weather is just starting to feel good again and it looks like things will be in bloom real soon. Another trip around the sun. Happy Birthday.

But even as I say that, my back is killing me from doing too much Spring-prep yard work and my nose is all stuffed up, probably just from the thought that allergy season is right around the corner. I still wonder what deep rooted psychosis has me scrambling around trying to get my yard in tip top shape. As I put fertilizer down, I swear that encouraging the lawn to grow now is something I will be cursing about much more intensely in July.

The "Green Factor" is strong in my neighborhood. Sure, people don't freely talk about it in public, but if you drive around the neighborhood and listen very carefully (possibly with the aid of a 900 MHz portable scanner), you can hear the discussion going on in private. It goes something like: "See Johnson's lawn? Looking a little pale yellow don't you think?" "Yeah, and where'd he buy that mulch he put down last year... CVS? Well, gotta go. I'm picking up the... (sniff) John Deere from the dealer's. I had the electric start tuned up and the spoke hubcaps polished."

Another thing that spring seems to bring is the start of new construction. It's easy to pick out street names that belong to a new development. Names like "Maple Street" or "Eagle Drive" are typical of roadways that have been around in a town for awhile whereas your "Tiffany Terrace" and "Baby Spice Boulevard" usually indicate some young new developer has put in a road that he actually got to name all by himself and in keeping with true chivalry, he let's his girlfriend or youngest daughter name it. Thank God I'm not the one living on "The Stones Rule! Circle".

I'm thinking about having my nose epoxied shut for the next 6 month. That should lock out most of the pollen and other nasty sneeze producers. I also think it would be a much safer solution than spraying some sort of semi-FDA approved chemical up my nose once every morning for 12 hours of allergy free skiing in a hayfield or balloon flights over meadows of wildflowers. Commercials can be so deceiving. I think "Kuzeja's Epoxy Block 24" would be a big hit. I might be able to get some big celebrity like James Earl Jones to endorse it. Hell, he's in the neighborhood doing Bell Atlantic Mobile commercials already. Plus with the Epoxy Block 24 there's no lawyer spouting off the "possible side effects". On second thought, I might have to explain that your head could explode from backed up nasal congestion. Hell, if James Earl Jones does it, it wouldn't sound scary... it would sound cool!

As you can probably tell, the allergy medicine I took 30 minutes ago is kicking in and is most likely impairing my judgement even as I type these humorless run on sentences. Oh well. I'm off to sharpen my lawnmower blades; I hear you can sharpen them really fast if you grab a file and use it on them while the mower's running on its side.

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