Thursday, May 3, 2012

Anyone know a good taxidermist?

Last August I spent hours sweating and shoveling on my lunch hour. Hours. Just so the person who bought our old house—which is still on the market one year later—in our former town of Mulletville wouldn't get the beautiful flowers I had planted.

I transported all those bulbs and roots to our new house (which is also my childhood home and so, um, not really new at all) and replanted them. I was so pleased with myself.

All this week I looked around our yard, waiting to see those little leaves poking through the soil, leaves that would give way to pretty blossoms, aka the fruits of my sweaty labor. It wasn't premature. It's spring. Besides, everyone in our fricken neighborhood is a landscaper. I know hostas and other fluffy flowers are blooming. I can see them all from my window.

I mentioned this to my mother last night. The kids were in bed. We were sitting at the table having a glass of wine. I was tired from a long week at work. Chuck was still working. She was tired from babysitting.

She turned on the outside light and told me to come outside. She brought me out back and showed me the dents in the ground. She shook her head.

"A woodchuck ate all your bulbs," she said. "Either that or a chipmunk."

"All of them?"

"All of them. Nothing is going to come up."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

There really wasn't anything more to say after that so we just looked at each other. 

"Fucking fuck," I finally said. It wasn't just the flowers that got me, but everything: working and struggling, missing Chuck, tripping on laundry, registering children for kindergarten, finding waffles stuck to my ass when I get out of the car, misplacing glasses, burning toast, the cat meowing, wet towels on doorknobs.

"I know," she said.

And she really did.

8 comments:

JoAnna said...

OMG I had a woodchuck totally eat all of the seedlings I bought one day. It actually climbed up on a table and ate them down to nubs. I was so livid. I ended up putting up a fence. Then I trapped the damned thing and called natural resources and they told me it's illegal to trap it and I better take it to the edge of my yard and let it go or I'd be in big trouble without a license to hunt. So I waited until the still of night and drove it to the elementary school down the road and let it out and never saw it again!! Bastards.

brokenteepee said...

Actually, I do know one...

This happened to me in NJ. We bought a Victorian and it these lovely beds laid out along the lines of the house. My first year there I planted 500 tulip bulbs.

500 FREAKIN' TULIP BULBS.

Ask me how many came up?
Ask me how many chipmunks needed chipmunk weight watchers that year?

Goddamn rodents

Frogs in my formula said...

Guys, guys! What about me?

Hahahaha.

Bastards!!

Keely said...

Ah, fuck.

(500 freakin' tulip bulbs, Patty?)

MaryBT said...

500 bulbs?! That is EXACTLY why I own firearms. lol.

I remember the first time I had a moment like that. My daughter wasn't quite 1. The TV broke, the basement mysteriously started leaking water, the vacuum broke, the microwave broke. Something else broke too, but time seems to have erased the trauma from my memory. All in like 2 days. I had this huge pile of broken appliances in my living room. lol.

Cyndy Bush said...

Um, Chuck Testa?
Bastard ass rodents. They have some nerve!

Sunshine and Shadows said...

We have gophers that do that same thing. I hate them. I'm sorry your bulbs didn't come up. That sucks.

Leanne said...

Shoot. 500? That's bad. Now, what was she posting here about?

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