Cut the @#%&* cord...again!

I can feel my wife Mona's double eye roll on the back of my neck a mili-second after I hear the pop!; that very distinct circuit breaker snap!followed by a whiff of ozone that crackles! everytime I cut the extension cord with my electric hedge clippers. Silent darkness in the front rooms of our house always immediately follows. Clocks stop, digital plasmas get reset and blink!, animals whine and bark. The Lord's name, usually in vain, passes through my lips in a clumsy whisper. I've been doing this for years...

I did it twice this past weekend; Once on Sunday. Once on Memorial Day. I've already matched my previous season high in the summer of 2008 with a score of two. Including the one I'm buying today on my way home, that makes seven 50ft extension cords I've accidently biten through while trying to cut a path through the Forest Glen jungle we call our yard. And the rainy season is still the proverbial young lion in Chicago during these last days of May.

Now, I'm either gas or battery powered for all my other garage kept machinery; lawn mower, various trimmers, leaf blower, compressor. Only my power washer and my hedge clippers are electric. (I haven't found a way to mess up the power washer yet although my attempt to blast a half foot of snow from my porch and front steps last winter when the wind chill was 10 below zero almost ended in disaster.) I swing a pretty mean sickle as well, and have the scars to prove it. On a positive home improvement note, I did manage to pull a missing silver baby spoon from the bowels of my garbage disposal this morning so at least that annoying noise is gone.

You see, I'm usually the Realtor hired to buy and sell Chicago real estate, not maintain it. Having an oversized 80 x 120 foot lot to care for along with all the other loafing around I do on a daily basis is a little too much to expect from someone who has lived in one condo or another for the past 10 years. I'm wearing my single family home ownership like a loose garment (ok, boxer shorts) these days. I just need to remind myself to not get it chewed up by my hedge clippers while I'm still in it...the loose garment, that is.

Geno Petro

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