Homeowners for weeds

Please excuse any typos or other irregularities that may arise in today's post. The Princess was seized yesterday by an urge to rid the front walk of all weeds, something that has oft been attempted but never quite accomplished. She even went so far as to work on some of the neighbor's weeds, which shows how very charitable she was feeling, as normally she prefers that hers not be the only walkway to bring shame on the neighborhood.


This effort, however, has cost the Princess the use of most of her fingers, she hopes temporarily. Coaxing the weeds from between the bricks is not easy, and considerable force is sometimes necessary, as the weeds have wound their roots deep down under the bricks and joined forces with every other weed on the block to produce Superweed.


Knowing that the Princess does not normally engage in weeding of her own free will, the Hero was suspicious. "Did we get a letter from the homeowner's association?" he said.


Each spring, many of us in the neighborhood are blessed with a friendly letter from the homeowner's association detailing our personal failings as homeowners, as evidenced by neglect of our yard or the exterior of our residences. Sometimes the objections raised can seem, to the homeowner, trivial matters ("Window completely missing from second floor"), and on the rare occasion when there is nothing to fault a homeowner with, the association will make something up, such as "Homeowner has mismatched garbage cans. Second offense."


But no doubt the association performs a very important service, and without their vigilant attention all of us would be living in squalor. Of course we would not KNOW we were living in squalor, without the association to tell us this.


But we have not received our annual letter this spring, which makes me concerned that perhaps the association is not going to reprimand us for the weeds, in which case all my hard work and loss of hand function was completely unnecessary. If no letter appears soon, I may send a letter of my own to the association, in which I will state (in a shaky scrawl owing to my injuries):


Dear Sirs or Madams,


Please excuse the poor legibility of this letter. I have just spent an entire day -- no, I think it was SEVERAL entire days, and some nights too -- on my hands and knees pulling weeds in anticipation of your yearly letter telling me I must do so, or face dire consequences.


We have not yet received that letter. If you do not plan to send it this year, I would very much appreciate knowing this. I would be very unhappy to think that I have spent so much valuable time on a fruitless effort. So if you are no longer in the business of threatening homeowners who fail to maintain a weed-free walk -- and more importantly, not in the business of doling out dire consequences -- I am going to immediately replace all of those weeds between the bricks so they can grow back DOUBLY high the rest of the summer. This way, we can maintain our privacy, AND you won't be able to find our house if you change your mind.


We eagerly await your reply.


Sincerely yours,
Homeowners for Letting Nature Be What It Is