Thursday, November 12, 2009

MY HATRED FOR LEAF-BLOWERS IS IMPLACABLE


I normally sleep between approximately 4am and noon. I always have, and don’t feel like arguing with anyone who thinks early rising is a virtue. Lately I have roused no less than three mornings each week between 7.30 and 8.00am by a piercing motorized metallic screaming like the sound of some cacophonous ensemble that Brian Eno might have devised had he developed a deep aversion to humanity. The cause of the noise is the massed leaf-blowers of guys who like to be called landscapers. The idiotic machines do nothing but blow the dead leaves of autumn off one property and onto the one next door. Rakes would be infinitely more efficient, but it seems the mechanization is everything. How all this goes on in a wretched economy and in what is a modest neighborhood of bungalows and three and four storey apartment buildings is a mystery. It is, however, driving me crazy. I need my sleep. So if you hear of a mass homicide of contract gardeners, you’ll know I’ve cracked.
(I would even seem to have green support. Seemingly each backpack engine pumps out as much smog-forming pollution as 80 cars, each driven 12,500 miles, according to a government air quality management agency in California. Click for facts.)

4 comments:

  1. Broom. Rake. Compost heap. Simple.

    I keep fairly similar hours, especially when I'm working on a book. You'd think living in a small village would help. But it's bloody chain saws, strimmers, mowers, power tools, all day long.

    These people have in their hands the method of their own, painful, bloody destruction.

    (Ha. Word verification - 'fork all')

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  2. Here, HERE! I champion your outrage with these dolts that society hath wrought. We have to rush to our corresponding windows 3 times a week, to shut them, before the cloud of filth wafts it's way inside our abode. And, ever drive by a dust cloud of this cancerous crud with your windows down? Or, heaven forbid, leave your car parked, with your windows cracked, whilst these degenerate cretins blast that toxic waste directly into your airsppace INSIDE your car? OH, GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  3. i`ve always hated these bloody things,noisy inefficient,a crass waste of a human`s time.grrr.

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  4. Used to have the same problem. Noisy bastards used to do their work even earlier than you have had to put up with. I figured, what with all the noise and all, the leafblower person would not notice me bending, breaking and stealing everything I could on the truck they showed up in. They did not notice and they never came back until well into the afternoon after that. That would probably get me counted as an eco- terrorist in the Home of the Brave. So be it.

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