The Gardeners Came

So I'm lying in bed, around 9 A.M., thinking about doing the laundry, and preparing myself for a day when I get up and don't immediately make coffee. And I hear footsteps outside, and voices.

They sound as though they're crunching across the mega-gravel in the xeriscape out front of the house, but that doesn't make sense, and I convince myself it's the neighbors working on some yard project.

Then there are many crunching footsteps, some conversation in Spanish, and someone turns our front yard hose on, which causes the entire house's plumbing to thunder.

I put on a bathrobe and tiptoed out into the living room to check out the situation through the front door's peep grille.

The gardeners had arrived.

I'm just glad to see that they really exist. When we moved in, the deal was that we would pay an extra forty bucks a month, and the landlord would provide a gardener to come by once a month and keep the yards maintained. This suited us fine. The Balabusta is insanely busy, and the fella hates yard work. Good deal, we thought.

Then we saw neither hide nor hair of a gardener for--well, I guess we've been here six weeks? Anyway, today they arrived, unheralded, watered, clipped the tree out front, sprayed some weed killer around, and left.

We made no contact, since the fella and I were both too underdressed and baffled to actually try to speak to them. After a while I realized the noises had stopped, looked out again, and they were gone.