IT LOOKS LIKE HELL…

Ravaged by the never-ending quest for improvement, the battlefield looks like hell. Dust and destruction lie everywhere. Rooms guttered and striped bare. The gaunt look of despair and sacrifice of comforts, a cold testament of the carnage yet to come.

Iraq? Maybe, but I’m talking about home. My home. The living room is slowly becoming a ghost room of echoes past. The hallway striped of its flooring and comfort of the rug. All gone. Only the whispers of happy voices when there were no floor sanders to hire, or rail installers to negotiate with. When rugs had a permanency, and the stupid dog didn’t piss on the rugs.

And as I look about outside, I see the ominous signs of spring. The brickwork haunts and taunts me with its little green weeds. Weeds defiantly wave at me, daring me to extricate them with my sore back. MMB (My Man Bill) toils away in his front yard, spreading topsoil and planting seeds for a lawn. My own lawn people, orders barked in Spanish, as they move across the property, blowing and sweeping and gathering the visages of winter past, as they sweep through my wallet one more time, and many more times to come.

There are weddings, weddings and more weddings to come. Gathering into the future like a storm on the horizon, threatening to blow me away with gale force winds, sweeping through my wallet, leaving devastation and weeping on my part.

The pool, covered with the tarp, leaves gathered, sitting in puddles, a mute testimony that the pool man cometh. He too, will take a chunk of my wallet, and will happily plan his winter vacation. And do I get a postcard? No, I get a bill and an estimate for next years aqua fest.

And, so I must move on. Shouldering my burdens, I will travel the trail of sorrow and money spent. I will look at all the neighbors, who won’t be spending money this spring, and say: “You lucky bastards.”

P.S. That's me in college.

Need solace and comfort from this blog? Write to: joedelbroccolo@yahoo.com. Tell him; “God, I need a break from you, go away!”