Old screensavers lawnmower man professional#
Instead, a briskly professional voice said, “Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services. Harold called the number, expecting a vacuuming housewife who would yell outside for her son. And halfway down the Part Time column, he found this: Lawns mowed. He flicked off the radio, picked up the paper, and turned to the classifieds. One day in late July, Harold went out on the patio during the seventh-inning stretch and saw a woodchuck sitting perkily on the overgrown back walk. And Don Smith's four-year-old daughter Jenny had taken to hiding in it when there was oatmeal for breakfast or spinach for supper. It was a good summer for grass three days of shine followed by one of gentle rain, almost like clockwork.īy mid-July, the lawn looked more like a meadow than a suburbanite's backyard, and Jack Castonmeyer had begun to make all sorts of extremely unfunny jokes, most of which concerned the price of hay and alfalfa. And the grass thrived and grew in a marvellous way. He sat on the back porch on the weekends and watched glumly as a never ending progression of young boys he had never seen before popped out to mutter a quick hello before taking his buxom daughter off to the local passion pit. He put off hiring a new boy as first May and then June slipped past him and the Red Sox continued to wallow in fourth place. Time certainly flew, didn't it? My God, yes. Harold shook his head in wonder and went to the refrigerator to get a beer.
When he finally got around to calling last year's boy, his mother told him Frank had gone to the state university. Harold came away with a brand-new Kelly blackwall tyre and a tankful of hi-test, and Phil put the silver Lawnboy out on one of the pump islands with a hand-lettered FOR SALE sign on it.Īnd this year, Harold just kept putting off the necessary hiring. So he took the silver Lawnboy down to Phil's Sunoco, and he and Phil dickered over it. And maybe Carla would stop moaning in her sleep. He had hired a boy this year next year he would just hire a boy and a mower.
He didn't really need a mower anyway, he supposed. She had a crush on the boy who mowed the lawn.Īfter a week of listening to his wife moan and gobble in the next bed, Harold decided to get rid of the mower. Their daughter and Mrs Smith stood over them, weeping, although Alicia had taken time enough to change her jumper for a pair of blue jeans and one of those disgusting skimpy sweaters. Although she had arrived after the fact, she had arrived in time to see Harold and the green-faced boy cleaning the blades. Harold's daughter had thrown up half a quart of cherry Kool-Aid into the lap of her new jumper, and his wife had nightmares for a week afterwards. While the boy was mowing the grass for the last time of the season, the Castonmeyers” dog had chased the Smiths” cat under the mower. But last year, in mid-October, fate had played Harold Parkette a nasty trick. In those days Harold Parkette had followed the Boston Red Sox on the radio with a beer in his hand and the knowledge that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world, including his lawn. He had owned a large silver Lawnboy and paid the boy down the block five dollars per cutting to push it.
In previous years, Harold Parkette had always taken pride in his lawn.
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