The Outdoors

OK, if you know me, you're wondering why the word "outdoors" would ever appear in something I wrote. This is a story I had posted on MySpace 2 yrs ago. Since it has no content, I decided to repost it here. Read on, and you will see that it fits my pattern.

Sunday, July 16, 2006
The house phone stopped working again. That's at least an annual occurrence in this neighborhood, and generally lasts 2-3 days. While Joe waited to speak with a human (Verizon has the most godawful annoying & incompetent voice recognition menu ever - but if you say "fuck you" enough times, it switches you to hold for a human), I dutifully went outside to test the box, so we could prove it was not a problem inside the house (for which they would gladly charge us $90/hr).
Normally, I walk around the side of the house, scoot behind a small bush, and test the phone line. This evening, I was trapped by the Devil's Snare. Or a beanstalk. Or several beanstalks. I was confused. I knew the cute little magnolia tree hadn't suddenly sprouted; it's a slow-grower. I, clever nature-girl that I am, finally deduced it was a weed. An incredibly huge, thick, tentacled monster. From 0 to 6 ft in 3 wks. I grabbed my trusty bow saw and hacked away. At least 6 trunks, 2-3" diameter. Fortunately it was lightweight & easy to cut, so I was done in 10 min, which is my outside limit for gardening. Tomorrow we have to figure out how to yank the roots, and tie up Audrey II for the trash men. Maybe I'll just spray the whole yard with Round-Up.
In the meantime, Joe got us scheduled for a maintenance call & the land line is forwarded to my cell. *sigh*
For some odd reason, DSL is still working. That's more important than the phone anyway.