March 30, 2008

When the Daffodils Bloom. . .

When the spring flowers emerge, it’s generally a good idea to pack away your Christmas decorations. My Mom always taught me that proper etiquette called for Christmas things to be gone by the end of January (Hers are usually down by January 2nd). I strictly adhere to this policy. It looks lazy and tacky if you don’t. If I’ve offended you, please take a few minutes and put away your Christmas decorations before reading the rest of this. I thank you and so will your neighbors.

Today we had another Open House. With about an hour to go before start time, I hustled to Home Depot, bought a bunch of flowers and filled up the pots in front of my house. I made sure to buy some yellow flowers. Apparently that color puts people in the "buying mood." When I was finishing up planting and as Mr. BBM was about to suck up the last of the leaves in our front yard, we noticed that our neighbor still had not put away her rather large plastic light up snowman decoration. This tends to not put people in a buying mood.

Like clockwork, this happens every year. The local Britney Spears just can’t be bothered with undecorating from the holidays. I should mention here that Christmas is not even a holiday that her religion celebrates. A couple weeks ago, it was the box that had been growing appendages on her front porch. We let the Christmas decorations slide since it was still rather cold. This week is April. It’s time to let go of Frosty. It’s time for the yearly reminder, yet again.

Since she wasn’t home, Mr. BBM pulled her "BRRR" sign out of the yard closest to our walkway and stood it up in her doorway, concealed from would be house buyers. He also uprooted another Christmas sign in the yard. He left Frosty to me.

For years now, I’ve been saying that Frosty needs to meet the dumpster. His plastic colors have faded from being kept out in the sun until, usually the 4th of July, and he doesn’t even work anymore. When we get a little wind, he sometimes ends up blocking our path to our front door or camping out sideways in our front yard. I can’t blame him for trying to get away from her yard, but enough already.

I boldly walked into her yard, grabbed the tired old Frosty and concealed him deep within the untrimmed bushes in her front yard. Truth be told, she probably won’t even notice; and if she does, she’ll definitely be too lazy to retrieve him from his forest hideaway.

If our Open House traffic from today is any indication of how our home selling is going to go, this may be the last year I have to get involved with Frosty and "Britney." Here’s hoping.