This Is Going To Drive Me Crazy
About two weeks ago, something appeared in my neighborhood. Something strange. Something I had never seen before being a lifelong resident of Texas.
Sheets. Big giant patterned sheets all over the front yard of a house down the street from me.
I am not amused.
At first I was willing to shrug this off to someone freaking out over the unusually cold temperatures we have been having around here.
I’m going to pause for a moment here to let all you nice Northern type people finish laughing. Done? Okay, carrying on…
Here’s the thing, they’ve been firmly in place now for over a week. Also, it’s not really that cold anymore. Highs in the mid 40’s, lows in the low 30’s. Yet there they are, day in and day out, taunting me.
If you were to ever be my neighbor, here are some things I don’t want to see:
- Sheets.
- Sheets in polka dot pink.
- Sheets with tiny Cowboys and Indians dancing around on them.
- Any of these sheets left for over a week on your shrubbery causing me to yell, “ARRRGH!!!!” every time I drive by.
- Side note: If you cannot hear me yelling “ARRRRGH!!!!” every time I drive by, your hearing may be impaired.
They appeared a few weeks ago during the first cold snap. (Again, you Northern types can yuk it up to your hearts content…) I wouldn’t have even known had The Man not called me to alert me to the situation at 7:00 am. However, they were gone as I left my house around 10:00 and I worried I had missed the spectacle.
I needn’t have worried so much about missing it however because a week ago they came back and they haven’t left since. We had a brief “snow moment” here earlier last week which was lovely but only lasted a few hours. The temperatures rose to about 40 degrees and I headed out for the day. As I rounded the corner, I literally stopped in shock.
::blink:: ::blink blink::
After absorbing it for a few moments, I did what any caring neighbor self involved blogger would do and whipped out my iPhone and snapped the picture and made my getaway.
Here’s the thing that really kills me, there are several houses around this one that are for sale. If there is one thing I know having lived in five different houses in my 15 years of marriage, you don’t need this kind of thing going on when you have a “For Sale” sign in your front yard. Sure, your landscaping is important, but not nearly as important as days ticked off on the market when you are trying to sell your home in an economy that just ain’t pretty right now.
(True story: when our previous house was for sale, there was a house under construction that went into foreclosure while we were listed. They erected a 10 ft chain link fence around the front of the house to stop the contractors from coming in and taking their stuff out and on Halloween I actually saw a guy running down the street with a toilet in his arms. Classy.)
Anyway, we are at this point but one glass of wine away from me sneaking over there to remove the sheets, fold them neatly and place them in a color coded stack on their front porch with a lovely note telling them to knock this nonsense off.
Because that’s how I roll y’all. Can you blame me?
I presently live next door to new neighbors who have a broken down filing cabinet and a ton of misc. garbage next to their garage, almost on my property, so nope, I can’t blame you at all.
Plus, don’t even get me started on their constantly barking dog…
Does your HOA specify a threadcount?
Yeah, whatev. That’s too many sheets – they obviously have landscaped with the wrong stuff. I’m a lifer here and have always kept my sheets – on the bed.
See, here in my barrio-type neighborhood of Los Angeles, I’m pretty much happy if our neighbors just get the broken down cars and ratty couches out of their front yards. But since your neighborhood looks actually nice…maybe you could just send them an anonymous postcard with “What’s with the sheets?” written on it.
Some shrubs and trees do better after a good cold snap. I think you’d be helping your neighbour by removing them.
I can’t blame you…I’d do a midnight removal!! Or a nice little note in mail box works too.
Where do the tiny Cowboys and Indians come from? Where do they live? And how did they become so small? Poor genetic material?
Don’t worry, if they stay there long enough the shrubs will die from lack of sunlight.
Brings new meaning to the phrase ‘landscaping bed’!
How about spray painting big unhappy faces on each sheet?
oh, you totally should. what is wrong with these people? they are so concerned about the way their lawn will look in spring that they are not at all concerned about how crappy it looks now with those ugly sheets?? Honestly. I don’t get some people.
I didn’t get this at first. Kids playing forts? Broken dryer? Then I realized it’s to cover shrubs against the frigid (Ha ha) temps?
How about buying them some burlap and leaving it on their stoop in the middle of the night? I’ve never heard of using sheets for this; crazy.
My grandmother used to go out and buy GOOD SHEETS to cover her precious azaleas every frost. She’d put them on after it was really dark and send my happy ass out there before it was light to take them off.
That was in TN…not ‘The Great White North’…sigh.
Well, to answer a couple of questions here – not many plants used in landscaping in the DFW area do well with a little cold. Nope. And I can see being concerned when it’s in the low 30s every night for a week (in an area where it rarely gets in the low 30s at night, period) and your heat resistant landscaping is in danger.
However, having said that – show a little class and remove the damn sheets when the temperature goes up in the morning, people! If you’re THAT concerned with how your yard looks, don’t you think the old, mismatched sheets on your lawn 24/7 are defeating the purpose a bit? Sheesh…
Do not blame you at all. But, because of those low temp *snicker* I’d fire yourself up with 2 glasses of wine.
It’s actually worse than my trashy neighbors who have baby blankets for curtains when they don’t actually have any kids. That we know of… Hm…
It snowed in Houston on Friday. SNOWED.
And the water pressure was so low it took me almost an hour to fill up a spaghetti pot. Damn Houstonians were all letting their pipes drip, because it was going to be 27 degrees for about an hour in the middle of the night.
No sheets on my street though. I guess that’s something.
They must be from Houston, because I grew up seeing that anytime Neil Frank threatened it would be cold! Now that I live in San Antonio, I don’t see it much. However, in our old n’hood, there was this crazy old guy who built a plastic-sheet enclosure with a heat lamp around some ugly plant in front of his house when it was cold!!!
This is one situation where an HOA would come in handy.
Our neighbors are renters, and they not only do not clean up their dogshit so our little attached yard also stinks, but they hate our cat who likes to sit at the junction of our fences. How do I know this? The cut into pieces a wooden Halloween cat thing you put in your yard and nailed the head, legs and tail to the fence. Separately. Hmmm. HOA to the rescue. Their landlord is now being fined $25 for every day they do not take down their fence defacement.
Um, are there dead bodies underneath them?
Cracking me up!
It’s…probably a good thing we’re not neighbours.
I would totally be up for going with you to fold those sheets and leaving them on their door step…who does that and then keeps it that way when it obviously isn’t needed anymore?!?!
~WM
once again you have me looking like a fool. Cackling to myself staring at the computer in the middle of the campus library.
Thanks so much.
I think I would do the same thing.
What? You thought I would fold them up? Nope. I’d be THAT neighbor with sheets on my shrubs. I’m too tired to bring them back in.
I am always up for undercover opps. I think it dates back to my teenage days when I used to drive around (on the down low) to collect info on my uncle who was having an affair.
I’m all for the midnight removal. But don’t return the sheets or they’ll just go right back up on the bushes. I think any type of indoor use item left outside for an extended period of time must be meant as a donation, so you could take them to the nearest Salvation Army.
In our old neighborhood, there was a house famous for having all kinds of weird junk in their yard (they had a duck, for goodness sake). once I drove by and there was a queen size mattress, completely made up with sheets, blanket and pillow in the front yard. Some people are crazy!!
OMG! This is freaking hilarious! It reminds me of the first year I started gardening after moving to a farm in Indiana, from LA. I was so excited about the growth of the first tulips i had ever planted in my entire life. Then there was a threat of frost. After asking the locals about how to save my tulips, everybody kept telling me to put sheets on them. “Sheets?” I asked “How the hell am I going to keep sheets on tulips buds with the 30 MPH winds that come through this country side? REALLY SHEETS??” I refused and got creative. You can read about it under,”Tee Peed Tulips”. There was no way I was going to put my sheets out for everyone to see. After looking at your pics, and reading your post I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t. Guzzle that glass of wine and go do it!!!!
y’all are whiny.
But the sheets MATCH right?