A Wild Hair Up My Ass

I'm having hazelnut coffee on our back deck, as I do every Sunday morning, when I see something that bothers the hell out of me. Around our deck on two sides is a bench, and on the side where our gigantic palm tree resides, you can't sit on the bench because the palm fans drape across it. I think, that sucker is out of control, spreading out rather than up (kinda like me). Worse, some of the fans rub and slap against my bedroom window on windy nights. The noise it makes reminds me of a bad horror movie; and I wonder, is it those damn palm fans? Or is it Jeepers Creepers? My cat hates it when I make her sleep with me just in case a monster breaks in.

So enjoying my java and watching the morning breezes bat those palm fans against my bay windows, a wild hair up my ass says, "Go! Get those clippers and prune that sucker." Apparently that's all I need to get anything done lickety-split, a wild hair up my ass. Despite being yardwork averse, I fetch the pruners and proceed toward the offending palm when my daughter TG comes out onto the deck with her coffee.

"Where are you going with those?" TG asks, taking a seat at the patio table.

"Pruning the palm."

She stands straight up again. "What? You'll kill it. Remember the peach tree?"

The event where I supposedly murdered an unsuspecting peach tree from over-pruning occurred in another house when TG was a teenager. How she remembers anything from her teen years is beyond me, as I know well what she was up to. Plus I don't remember all that much of mine and some of my friends swear they don't remember a thing. It was the early seventies after all.

"What are you talking about?" I say indignantly. "I didn't kill it. It was dead already. I just, um, cut it back some." Okay, I cut it back a lot. But I didn't do a George Washington on it.

At this house, most yard work is done by TG or her husband Prince George. TG likes yardwork. Prince George does what he is told. Despite TG's skepticism about my pruning abilities, I approach the palm.

My daughter Capeeta, visiting from New Orleans, saunters outside with her coffee then. "What are you doing, Mom?"

TG says with trepidation. "Remember the peach tree?"

Capeeta eyes me accusingly. "The one she killed?"

I sigh. "I didn't kill it. I pruned it. Generously."

They stare at me with skewed and doubtful faces. But I am not deterred. In fact, I am emboldened knowing my cat will thank me. I crouch carefully under overhanging palms whose branches are lined with sharp, needlepoint barbs. My shirt gets snagged and my shoulders get stabbed, but I ignore these inconveniences if for no other reason than to save face -- a yardwork-averse woman with a large cutting tool in her hands is no one to mess with. I position the pruners around thick branches, some of which are brown and withered -- dead without my help -- and I cut.

Capeeta's 34-month-old son hangs on her leg and cries plaintively for her attention. Poor child hasn't pooped in a week. "Later," she says. "I'm watching Nana."

TG's 34-month-old son begs for food and water. He is no doubt wracked with hunger pains, but she says, "Not now, I'm watching Nana."

It us under these watchful eyes, that I clip off the bottom dozen branches. After ten minutes of diligent snipping (my arms, hands, and various other body parts skewered by palm barbs), I say proudly, "Doesn't that look better? Now it will grow up instead of out."

"It's lopsided," is all the ingrates can say.

I clip off two more branches and haul the cut palms to the back fence. While they sit on their lazy behinds, I toss each fan over the fence (behind our house are empty acres and acres of weeds and brush). The wind picks up each one and tosses it back at me. I run for cover as the barbed fans strafe my skin. I glance furtively at my daughters, still sitting at the patio table, still watching me, and smiling evilly.

I did not think about taking a before picture, so you get the after. I think all my spontaneous hard work made the palm tree look better. What do you think? And if you would like to write spontaneous letters shaming my daughters for ridiculing my efforts at spiffing up the place, please do so at fragrantliar@yahoo.com.

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