It was creeping up on Saturday mid-afternoon, and I was feeling restless. I should have known better.
Our neighbor to the north, Andy, has been working on his house over the last couple of weeks - re-grading the lawn around the foundation, putting some finishing touches on the backyard deck he built last summer. Which makes the north side of our house all the more embarrassing: a few hostas and a columbine struggling to survive in the shade, and some kind of prickly bush hunched over the water meter. I had been meaning to put in some edging to provide some definition - in other words, a clear demarcation where the weeds lawn ends. Then I'd cover everything in mulch and hope for the best.
This seemed like a good project to tackle - something that would keep me busy for an hour or two. And that included going to Home Depot and picking up the edging. How tough could it be?
I meant to pick up the cheap plastic edging - the stuff that looks like a roll of flattened garden hose. But then the Depot presented me with options, like a hard plastic edging that "installs in minutes, lasts for years." That certainly looked easy, and although it was about three times the price of the cheap stuff, my time was worth it.
An hour later, I was regretting my decision. Using a small rubber mallet, getting the edging in place was easy. But I'd pound on one end, and the other end would pop up. After a while, my hands were beginning to blister, and my forearms were trembling. I was drenched with sweat, as I was working in the sun - which wouldn't have been an issue if I had started an hour or two earlier.
Andy walked by, shaking his head. I did my best Vanna White and waved at the edging. "Installs in minutes," I said.
"They didn't say how many minutes," he said, not stopping.
I moved slowly up and down the line, hammering the edging. At one point, the handle of the mallet shattered, and I resorted to using a hammer and a short piece of two-by-four.The wood slowly dented, and slowly turning green from where I had inadvertently caught a hosta leaf.
The hammering echoed loudly between the two houses, and Quinn eventually came around to investigate. He stood near and watched silently, which always makes me nervous: I could hear the childhood memories being etched into place. Years from now he'll recall The Time Dad Was Hammering Like a Madman and Looked Like He Was About to Die.
"Did you say a bad word, Daddy?"
"Uh, no, I must have been grunting from the effort." This was met with more silence. (The Time Dad Was Really Sweaty and Lied to Me. Installs in minutes, lasts for years, indeed.)
I had had enough of pounding the edging, and Quinn helped me put the mulch down. Jenny came around to see what was taking so long, and asked me numerous times if I was OK. This from the woman who had run a 10K earlier in the day, on a course where the heat and insufficient supply of water had sent dozens of people to the hospital. "I'll be fine," I muttered. "I may need a bandaid or two."
Finally, it was done, or close enough to it. The edging wasn't perfectly straight or perfectly level. Quinn helpfully suggested that the mulch would cover most of my engineering mistakes. So I suppose I did teach him a valuable lesson.
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