By Rick Kaempfer
How pathetic is this?
When I tell you that my mind is in the gutter, I’m literally referring to my gutters.
I hate them.
If you’ve ever had gutter problems, you know what I mean. We live on a lot with a few big old trees, and the leaves on these particular trees are magnetically attracted to my gutters. It doesn’t seem that way when I’m raking the five hundred pounds of leaves on my lawn and driveway every fall, but those leaves only land there because the gutters are completely full.
If I don’t stay on top of this job, every rain storm will create an unwanted indoor pool in my laundry room. Plus, the harder it rains, the more the leaves fall, which means my gutters fill up again while it’s raining. There have been more than a few rainstorms over the years where your good friend Suburban Man has leaned out of his dormer windows to clean out the gutters in the midst of a downpour. Getting drenched seemed like the best option at the time.
I know I could get improved state-of-the-art gutters or gutter covers, but Suburban Man is also a cheap bastard who likes to think outside of the box and solve problems like this without spending any money.
With that in mind, I have another problem which doesn’t at first blush appear to be related to my gutters in any way, but see if you can follow my logic as I suggest a bold new way to tackle two problems at one time.
Now that all three of my kids are in school, they bring home enough paper to provide confetti for Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years Eve for the next twenty years. It’s really ridiculous. They must chop down a forest for every child in every classroom.
What does this have to do with my gutters?
Well, what if I donate all of the trees on my land to the school? Trees have to be cut down anyway. Why destroy perfectly good forests (with no gutters anywhere in sight), when I have some unwanted trees right here on my property. Everybody wins. The schools get free paper, the village won’t have to collect my five hundred pounds of non-gutter leaves, I get ten to fifteen extra hours each fall to help feed the homeless (which is what I would be doing instead of raking), and my gutters will be able to serve their intended purpose.
True, the tulip-bulb-eating squirrels will have to relocate once their homes are chopped down, but maybe that’s a good thing too. Maybe they’ll rediscover the forests. This could be the best thing that ever happened to little Rocky and his family. They shouldn’t be forced to share their native land with crass suburbanites like me. Let them frolic in the woods with their fellow squirrels in their native habitat.
Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
Good.
Now let me tell you about my other plan to conserve gasoline and countless man hours during the summer.
I’m thinking of converting my lawn to gravel.
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