It was summer. I remember because my truck was covered in yellow powder. And if you don’t know the yellow powder I speak of, you might be from Ohio.
A lot of people who move to the South from other places think our biggest problems are humidity, mosquitoes, or evangelical fundamentalists. But those are nothing. We have dehumidifiers for humidity, citronella for bugs, and fundamentalists won’t bother you if you play dead or talk about beer.
No, one of our biggest pests in these parts is the Satanic tree dust that kills innocent woodland creatures and ushers in Armageddon. Pine pollen.
Long ago, I tried to start a landscaping company. It was a bad idea and a colossal failure. I bought a utility trailer and some equipment. And when pollen season hit, I put a few fliers in mailboxes.
“FIRST LAWN-CUTTING IS FREE!!!!” I advertised, and I used four exclamation points, since four is better than three.
One of my first customers was an old man. He hired me to re-sod his entire front yard during
the height of pollen season. I paid my friend Adam to help me.
Adam and I worked like rented mules. We replaced almost half an acre of centipede grass until our noses were running and our eyes were totally swollen shut.
“This pollen’s killing me,” I said to Adam.
“Who said that?” Adam answered.
While we worked, an old woman came walking out of the house. She wore a nightgown, her hair was white and messy. She wandered through the yard like she were in a daze, letting the sun hit her face. She smiled. She sneezed.
"Oh, Carl!" she shouted. "There are boys out here!"
She sneezed again.
"Boys!" she said. “Two boys!”
I was afraid this woman was going to boil us in a kettle with some toe of frog and the eye of newt.
Finally, the woman announced that she wanted…