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These women are crazy (Unedited and unformatted excerpt from by upcoming book) 

Bedford and I made our way to an older neighborhood, it was a perfect night for a walk. A red pickup truck was parked in the middle of the block and a small black guy wearing neon green shorts was busy filling it up with landscaping rock. The pile he had to move was pretty big and while passing by I had to make a useless comment: “I see you have your work cut out for you”. The man rested the shovel against the truck and took a swig of water from a bottle that was sitting on the tailgate. He nodded and replied: “You might say that. I don’t mind hard work and I’m used to it, but this job is getting on my nerves and it’s all because someone couldn’t pay attention to what he was doing”.

I had to ask him: “What happened?” He took another zip of water and started telling his story. “I’m in construction you see, framing, drywalling and that kind of stuff. Today I was working on a place on Mine Road and next-door landscapers were busy planting stuff. There comes this dump rock with a load of landscape rock. Now someone made a mistake and ordered 20 tons instead of 10 tons. So, the driver had to dump half the load and take back the rest. Now I happen to know the driver and I made a deal with him. He would take the rest to our place and dump in the front yard, it was not far out of his way anyway. He called his boss who agreed to let me have it for $75. I gave him the address and there he went. I came home an hour ago and this is what I found”. He kicked the pile with anger it seemed.

“OK, but what is the problem?” I asked. He pointed to the house behind him. “You see that number? It’s 1347, and I live in 1349. That dumbass dumped it in my neighbor’s yard. And it wouldn’t be so bad If I had a normal neighbor, but this woman here gets upset about nothing, I tell you. If she sees someone flicking cigarette butt in her yard, she already acts like the world is coming to an end. Unfortunately, she was not home when the truck came, otherwise this stuff would not be here, trust me.  As soon as I pulled into my driveway she came flying out of her house and asked me if I knew anything about this.

I explained to her what happened and promised to get it out of here as quickly as I can. But guess what? She wants it gone tonight or she’ll call the police. Can you believe that? I was hoping to do it tomorrow, so I don’t have to miss my poker night. I play poker with my buddies every Thursday night, done that for years. But no playing tonight because crazy Donna wants to have this done now.

So, I got my wheelbarrow and started moving it to our yard”. He pointed to a pile next to his driveway and then continued. “But here comes the real kicker. I think I already moved 15 wheelbarrows full when my wife comes home from work. And she asks what I’m doing, so I tell her. Then she looks at the rock and says: “O, but I don’t like this rock. It’s too big and the color is not right either”. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to change her mind, but no way. She doesn’t want in our yard, it’s crazy. Now what I’m going to do with it? Then I remembered my buddy Jim saying that he needed some. I called and offered it to him for free. Sure, he wanted it, so now I have to load it all up in my truck and take it to his place. Have to make a few trips too, this stuff is heavy. What a disaster”.

He emptied the water bottle and threw in the cabin of the truck through the open window. It hit the opposite door with some force. The man was clearly frustrated, “Shouldn’t the friend you are taking this stuff to be helping you with it?” I asked. He kicked a tire. “Yes, he should, and he would, but his wife won’t let him. He had hernia surgery a while back and ever since his wife won’t let him do anything. I swear, she gets upset when he gets a gallon of milk out of the fridge. I have never seen anything like it. Jim doesn’t like it, but she is a very bossy person, so he just tries avoiding any confrontation. Luckily, he works in an office, something with computers so he doesn’t have to do any physical work. I’ll tell you, if she didn’t have a job to go to herself, she would probably go to the office with him just to carry his briefcase. It’s ridiculous. Yeah man, these women are crazy”.

He picked up the shovel and with an angry look on his face he continued his daunting task.