So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[AmateisGal]

I am an autumn gal. This is my SEASON! I love everything about it.

But today, I became irrationally upset when they mowed our lawn (I live in an apartment building) and the beautiful, crisp, colorful blanket of leaves on the lawn disappeared. Trivial, yes. But upsetting nevertheless.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm fundamentally opposed to raking leaves. It's bad for the bugs, it's bad for the bees, it's bad for the worms, and it's bad for humanity. Leave the leaves alone.

 

[AmateisGal]

I'm fundamentally opposed to raking leaves. It's bad for the bugs, it's bad for the bees, it's bad for the worms, and it's bad for humanity. Leave the leaves alone.

Agreed. I never raked the leaves at my old house.

 

[tonyb]

I “rake” leaves the lazy person’s way — I just run the lawnmower over ’em so they don’t choke out the grass altogether.

A lawn in this semi-arid region requires more supplemental water than is reasonable, in my view. I water the front just to keep up appearances, but the back looks like it’s never watered, as it never is, and is the playground and potty for two dogs, as it always is.

 

[tonyb]

... it’s drivers in compacts and subcompacts who apparently think it’s their “right” to drive 5 to 10 mph under the posted speed limit in the left-hand lane.

This afternoon it was a fellow in an aged F-150 poking along at 5 mph or more under the limit in the left lane. And he had his right blinker on for a good half mile or more. And then he took a left.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I never got the sense of raking leaves. Must be the category "Prussian Masochism".

You like Heinrich Heine?

Germany - A Winters Tale

"These people are still the same wooden types,
Spout pedantic commonplaces -
All motions right-angled - and priggishness
Is frozen upon their faces."

 

[Turnip]

It couldn’t get more German, less Prussian (read your Clausewitz?), doing things because of their own...

 

[Hercule]

This afternoon it was a fellow in an aged F-150 poking along at 5 mph or more under the limit in the left lane. And he had his right blinker on for a good half mile or more. And then he took a left.

That's interesting. In my experience, pickup trucks are by far the most obnoxious on the road, seemingly willing to go through you to get ahead. Never seen a slow one before.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I “rake” leaves the lazy person’s way — I just run the lawnmower over ’em so they don’t choke out the grass altogether.

A lawn in this semi-arid region requires more supplemental water than is reasonable, in my view. I water the front just to keep up appearances, but the back looks like it’s never watered, as it never is, and is the playground and potty for two dogs, as it always is.

My thimble-sized bit of soil is nothing but weeds, old lumps of coal and clinker, and moss -- between the lack of rain the last ten summers or so and the chemical wasteland of the abandoned junkyard site out back, there's no point in caring about it. If I cared at all, I'd just paint the dirt green and call it good. But I don't even care that much.

I also let my rosebush grow wild and untamed so it blocks access to my front door. Keeps the political canvassers away.

 

[MisterCairo]

We have no Karens (and Beckys) in Germany, but there are a def. some Su(s)annes, matching the point. Either married and aggressive OR lone and psychic wrecked (and aggressive). Usually viragoes.

In the Canadian military, officers need to learn the "other" official language, and it was interesting to learn of the French (AND apparently German) word "virago".

When we asked our instructor for the meaning in English, it was roughly translated as "battle axe".

Not sure if that one is in the "Golden era terms not much in use" thread!

 

[tonyb]

That's interesting. In my experience, pickup trucks are by far the most obnoxious on the road, seemingly willing to go through you to get ahead. Never seen a slow one before.

The F-150 was an outlier, in my experience. As I noted earlier, it’s more often the econo-car drivers who dawdle along, and seemingly try to make the rest us do the same.

 

[tonyb]

My thimble-sized bit of soil is nothing but weeds, old lumps of coal and clinker, and moss -- between the lack of rain the last ten summers or so and the chemical wasteland of the abandoned junkyard site out back, there's no point in caring about it. If I cared at all, I'd just paint the dirt green and call it good. But I don't even care that much.

...

Our “lawn” at the Lacey (Washington) place, surrounded by trees, was almost entirely moss. It got direct sunlight for only a couple-three hours only on those relatively rare sunny summer days, when the sun was high in the sky. The rest of the year it was soggy as a sponge.

 

[Woodtroll]

The F-150 was an outlier, in my experience. As I noted earlier, it’s more often the econo-car drivers who dawdle along, and seemingly try to make the rest us do the same.

The dawdlers here are the Prius drivers, or the Subaru drivers who festoon the entire rear of their car with so many bumper stickers that it would take an hour to read them all... I've never understood what it is with Subarus and bumper stickers.

 

[tonyb]

...
I also let my rosebush grow wild and untamed so it blocks access to my front door. Keeps the political canvassers away.

I once had a homemade sign taped to the front door reading “NO SOLICITORS, SURVEY TAKERS, RELIGIOUS PROSELYTIZERS, DOOR HANGERS, POLITICAL CANVASSERS.”

My wife insisted I take it down. It seemed hostile, she said. And it wasn’t 100 percent effective anyway.

 

[tonyb]

The dawdlers here are the Prius drivers, or the Subaru drivers who festoon the entire rear of their car with so many bumper stickers that it would take an hour to read them all... I've never understood what it is with Subarus and bumper stickers.

Yeah, we get those, too.

Bumper stickers aren’t as common overall as they were when I was a youngster, although it seems that those who festoon their vehicles with them attempt to make up for those who don’t.

Around here, in greater Denver, jacked-up pickup trucks emblazoned across the back with right-wing messages are a too-common sight. I see one of those things and think, man, I sure am thankful I don’t live next door to this gasbag. It’s pretty much the way I felt about those strident lefties out Seattle way who plastered the backs of their little cars proclaiming their solidarity with all that is good and just.

Virtue signaling? I suppose it is, in both cases. And I suppose the people given to doing it fail to recognize that it alienates more people than it wins over.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The raging meatheads who cut you off in a rotary in a speeding pickup truck with a tattered rag of a flag -- or multiple flags -- whipping from the bed to block your vision are the ones who really need to get what's coming to them. Right up there with coal-rollers in the hell-bound pantheon.

 

[Hercule]

I once had a homemade sign taped to the front door reading “NO SOLICITORS, SURVEY TAKERS, RELIGIOUS PROSELYTIZERS, DOOR HANGERS, POLITICAL CANVASSERS.”

My wife insisted I take it down. It seemed hostile, she said. And it wasn’t 100 percent effective anyway.

In our new house we have noted an almost universal aversion to using the doorbell. When we moved in we replaced the simple button with Ring, so it's as big as day and just as obvious, but everybody who comes to the door pounds on the glass of the storm door. It's just so very strange. I think we should adopt a policy of not answering the door if the doorbell isn't rung.

Our most recent door knockers have been (aside from weekly visits from AT&T - how many times do you have to say NO?!!) contractors doing work on our street trying to drum up additional business.

 

[tonyb]

...
Our most recent door knockers have been (aside from weekly visits from AT&T - how many times do you have to say NO?!!) contractors doing work on our street trying to drum up additional business.

And that’s provided they really are doing work on your street.

I reserve special disdain for the guys whose pitch opens with “We’ve been working with some of your neighbors ... “ or some close variation thereon.

They do that in an attempt to immediately establish some cred with the would-be customer. You know, your neighbors are happy with us!

But it’s such a transparent lie that it has the opposite effect. It does on me, anyway.

And besides, do they really think I’ll hire a contractor from some guy with soft hands and an iPad going door-to-door?

 

[belfastboy]

I'm fundamentally opposed to raking leaves. It's bad for the bugs, it's bad for the bees, it's bad for the worms, and it's bad for humanity. Leave the leaves alone.

vindication for me.....all these years of being accused of laziness for not raking my leaves......now it turns out I was an enviro warrior......a man ahead of his time........imagine that! Does not happen very often.

 

[GHT]

vindication for me.....all these years of being accused of laziness for not raking my leaves......now it turns out I was an enviro warrior......a man ahead of his time........imagine that! Does not happen very often.

Tell my missus that and she'll say: "Lazy *******!"