Paranoia

If my last post seemed exceedingly vague, I apologize.

See, they're out to get me.

They--a shadowy group of ne'er-do-wells from the past--have set their sights on yours truly and they've chosen to scare me with Lawn Terrorism, the most vicious form of suburban warfare.

They tried to get my attention last year by planting some broadleaf weeds. I shrugged it off to mere windblown weed seed. Plus, I'm a journalist. I fear no ne'er-do-well, no matter how many punctuation marks their description requires.

But now...something akin to chemical warefare is happening all over the lawns of Mt. Willis. I don't even know what to call it. It's not a fungus. It doesn't look much like a weed.

It's an organic grass eating hair net.

I first noticed it mid-summer when I tried to pluck a weed and it plucked back. I pulled, it pulled back. I stomped it and it smiled.

Despite my assurances that the Organic Grass-Eating Hair Net is an herbivore, my puppy refuses to step into the grass for long. Fear, you see, that her wiry frame might be confused for a wispy piece of fescue. She hides under the deck (where the ground is only carpet-staining red clay) and does her business, then quickly hops up the stairs and hides under a tattered blanket.

At the current rate of growth, the entire Mt. Willis compound will be under the Hair Net by July of 2003.

See, I must be vague. Because they are out to get me. First my lawn, then my wife.

I should've been afraid much sooner.