A Comedy of Errors

We both called the events a comedy of errors but there the similarity stops. No twins involved here. No famous author. No family mysteries. In fact, the only comparison that can be drawn between Shakespeare’s play and the antics in The Neighbor’s yard is that the more time passed, the sillier things got.

Act One saw The Neighbor rumbling home on a great big orange tractor borrowed from a well-meaning friend. His intentions were good; he was going to plow himself a road into the woods behind the house to harvest the fallen cedar trees to use as firewood during the coming winter. Cave men did the same thing, they just didn’t have tractors.

After taking down a large section of fence, Big Orange and The Neighbor proceeded to knock down saplings, push over rocks, and move lots of red dirt around. Several hours later, a “road” of about 100 feet was discernible. Old bricks and chunks of rock foundation walls lay scattered about, effectively defining the path. What had been there before? He was on a path of discovery! Well, not really, but he did find an old barbed-wire fence, some posts and a dry creek bed. Not that The Neighbor could see them, though, for in his fervor and child-like enthusiasm on the over-sized Tinker Toy, he had somehow managed to lose his glasses right off his head. Never even noticed they were gone until hours later.

So, moving right along to those later hours, The Neighbor called it quits for the day and started back across the yard to park his Tool of Destruction for the night. Ah, but he’d had a good day – knocking things down, pushing things around, scooping up dirt in the big bucket and dumping it out somewhere else. All that work deserved one last look before retiring for the evening. Thanks to the nice clear enclosure around the driver’s seat, The Neighbor was able to swing around in the seat to observe all that he had created. And then, also thanks to the nice clear enclosure around the driver’s seat, he was not injured by parts of his redwood picnic table flying like shrapnel through the air as Big Orange plod directly over its center. Eyes front and center, Neighbor.

Act Two. It’s the next day and The Neighbor puts off more road building to take care of mowing chores. Have I told you he bought another new old lawn mower to act as partner to his other old mower? Well, he did and this one is a real Wheelhorse of another color. Well, actually it’s red like the other old one and just as ornery. After having most of its parts replaced with new ones, the newest old mower decided that perhaps that big beautiful flower pot at the edge of the driveway was not in exactly the right place and proceeded to try to relocate it. Thankfully, no serious injuries occurred and the mandevilla in the pot lived to grow another day.

Act Three. No one is exactly sure how this scene played out. No one admits to anything. All we know is on Monday when The Wife went out to hang up laundry to dry (as all good wives do on Monday), the clothesline lay dead on the ground. It was one of those round spinning things on a metal pole, and now it lay fallen and sad, its lines damp with dew in the grass…the newly mown grass, I might remind you. Such a mysterious tragedy.

Well, the curtain has come down on this weekend of backyard mayhem and destruction. Thank goodness. Not that The Neighbor can see it – he never did find his glasses.