Christine...

Are there certain sounds, irritating noises, that can drive you nuts, dear readers?  I don't think I'm alone in this.  Surely everyone can reach a point where they would like to get in their car, drive along their quiet, peaceful little mountain road at 90 mph, wiping out any and all OCD leaf blowing neighbors.

 

No?  Ah well, then before someone calls the coppers allow me to explain my homicidal broodings...

 

A few houses further down the road from me, I have a newly retired couple who apparently have yet to work out what to do with themselves.  Every day--really, every day--the woman goes out into the road and blows the oak leaves from one side of the road to the other.  I live in the wild and yet all I can hear for over two hours in the early afternoons is the constant, high-pitched whine of buzz-z-z-z-z-zing that rips through the stillness like a gigantic mosquito on crack.

 

I try really hard to ignore it, but as the endless minutes drone by, I contemplate using the car as my weapon of choice, visions of crushing her the blower under the wheels of the Blazer dance through my head.  Then suddenly, she will stop.  I breathe a deep sigh of relief, begin to relax back into the peace of living on a mountain.  NO!  Wait!  An oak leaf has fallen!  Oh my God, quick!  Fire up the bloody machine and blow that sucker over the ridge!  And, oh look, another one...and another...

 

I'm considering an intervention.  I mean it.  There's just something so wrong about this behavior.  And in case you think I'm being rude or snarky about the woman, think again.  My attitude toward these weirdos includes both of them because later, in the early evening, just as I'm settling down for dinner or a nice glass of wine and my book, the guy comes out and begins his nightly ritual of one to two hours blowing whatever leaves have fallen since the afternoon.  Seriously.  He even keeps going in the dark.

 

If everyone along the road got out their damned blowers to deal with the leaves, I would truly think it was just me.  After all, I haven't lived in America for years and maybe leaf blowing has become a new Olympic sport for retirees. 

 

But no.  Clearly no one else along my road acts like this.  The rest of us seemingly have lives that don't revolve around daily leaf blowing.  We wait until the trees are bare, and with any luck a good strong windstorm will have come through and taken care of the leaves anyway.

 

Maybe I'm just too organic.  I sweep and I rake.  It's quiet, doesn't disturb a soul, and most assuredly doesn't leave any kind of footprint except the outline of my shoe in the soil.

 

 

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The title of this post refers to a book written by Stephen King about a homicidal car named Christine.