Open Letters to the Houseowners of Rogers Park
Yes, yes, I get it. You're much better and more important than all of us, because you have an entire house, with a private yard and everything. Rock on. I only live in a building with a shared courtyard, which my unit doesn't even overlook. So I can't rock. Can I just say one thing, though?
I hate you.
Yes, you read correctly. I fucking hate you. Why, you ask? One word: sprinklers.
In the past few years, I've grown to hate all of you, because I can't even take a walk (you know, on the public sidewalk) without stepping into a shower of sprinkler water every 100 feet. I know that you think you're giving us a fighting chance by using those oscillating things that switch directions every few seconds, but let's get real. At best, they don't swing all the way to the other side, meaning the water is either streaming over us or raining directly down on us. And I'm goddamned tired of walking in the street to avoid them.
I realize how important it is to use a sprinkler with a firing range of half a mile to water your eight-square-foot urban garden. Probably makes you feel all "Lord of the Manor," doesn't it? I'll bet you even come outside in the mornings to survey your acreage, tapping that riding crop on the side of your leg, nodding with grim satisfaction at the lushness of those magnolias in the box along the sidewalk, as you prepare to mount your faithful steed (or in your case, your silver Mercedes SUV with the extra-wide mud flaps, just so you can slosh pedestrians on rainy days on the off-chance they haven't had to walk through your yard-geyser).
Or maybe you rise at dawn, when the blue light first peeks over the horizon, and come out of your house draped in silk, lace and tulle, a la Stevie Nicks, and do a little Welsh witch dance among the lushness of your peony bushes. Now THAT is something I'd definitely take an early walk to see (if only to tape it and send it to the folks at "America's Creepiest Home Videos").
But I would remind you that the sidewalk is public property, and that you don't have the right to interfere with others' use of it. And placing a sprinkler at the very edge of your yard so that it sprays eight feet in both directions, and never even stops spraying in our direction long enough to make a run for it without getting our ass wet--that, my friend, is interference.
Perhaps I'll just start bringing along my hunting knife with me on these excursions. Your hoses will never be the same.
I hate you.
Yes, you read correctly. I fucking hate you. Why, you ask? One word: sprinklers.
In the past few years, I've grown to hate all of you, because I can't even take a walk (you know, on the public sidewalk) without stepping into a shower of sprinkler water every 100 feet. I know that you think you're giving us a fighting chance by using those oscillating things that switch directions every few seconds, but let's get real. At best, they don't swing all the way to the other side, meaning the water is either streaming over us or raining directly down on us. And I'm goddamned tired of walking in the street to avoid them.
I realize how important it is to use a sprinkler with a firing range of half a mile to water your eight-square-foot urban garden. Probably makes you feel all "Lord of the Manor," doesn't it? I'll bet you even come outside in the mornings to survey your acreage, tapping that riding crop on the side of your leg, nodding with grim satisfaction at the lushness of those magnolias in the box along the sidewalk, as you prepare to mount your faithful steed (or in your case, your silver Mercedes SUV with the extra-wide mud flaps, just so you can slosh pedestrians on rainy days on the off-chance they haven't had to walk through your yard-geyser).
Or maybe you rise at dawn, when the blue light first peeks over the horizon, and come out of your house draped in silk, lace and tulle, a la Stevie Nicks, and do a little Welsh witch dance among the lushness of your peony bushes. Now THAT is something I'd definitely take an early walk to see (if only to tape it and send it to the folks at "America's Creepiest Home Videos").
But I would remind you that the sidewalk is public property, and that you don't have the right to interfere with others' use of it. And placing a sprinkler at the very edge of your yard so that it sprays eight feet in both directions, and never even stops spraying in our direction long enough to make a run for it without getting our ass wet--that, my friend, is interference.
Perhaps I'll just start bringing along my hunting knife with me on these excursions. Your hoses will never be the same.
posted by Aaron at 5:17 PM
2 Comments:
Aaron, you seem to have something to say and yet won't come right out and say what it is.
Don't hold things in, man...it's not healthy.
Oh, I'll let it out. But you'd better not light a match afterwards!
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