Sounds and Smells of Saturday.

This week the neighbors around the corner got their roof done. For three days, we took guesses how long it would be until the huge palettes of shingles would slide off the roof and kill someone. As far as I know, they never did. It could be the roofers used some of the extra flashing cement they bragged about having to tack the palettes down.

I really did consider yelling over to the roofers that they might like to come over here if that extra flashing cement was really burning a hole in their truck. But I did not.

I did discover a ridiculous amount of pokeweed growing behind my shed, however (THREE!), and I listened to the cacophony known as the neighbor's kid as I was pulling the pokeweed (not an easy thing to do considering poke has the defense mechanism of falling apart if you tug on it once it grows higher than three inches).

For an hour, he kept telling someone that something was, "RIGHT THERE!" like his ass was chained to the ground and he couldn't go fetch it himself. I later presumed that he meant his soccer ball, because a little while later, he asked someone to get his soccer ball fifty-three times.

The child was then allowed near the lawn mower. My dog, who is terrified of everything from the electric cake mixer to the Shop-Vac, paid no mind to this. This doesn't surprise me.

"I'm on the roof!" he screamed roughly twenty times before someone (other than me and everyone else in the Tri-State area) noticed him.

"I like it here!" he argued when anyone would tell him to get down.

"I can see the church from here!" he screamed as I thought to myself that might be where he'll be buried out of when he smashes his fool melon head on the ground.

"I'm falling!" he screamed twice when I guess no one was paying any attention to his antics anymore.

He then sounded as if he was being murdered, and kept saying, "Let go of me!" so all I can hope is that the creature from the blackest lagoon of rain gutter build-up ate the damn noisy fool.

I do believe this is the child that yelled, "Ma!" non-stop for four years. I'm not kidding.

I will say this: I enjoyed killin' stuff growing out of the ground while that kid was screaming. I pretended it was his vocal cords. Are vocal cords actual cords? I'm thinking no. Then again, my eyes are not water fountains, yet try telling that to the mosquito that landed in my eye.

I think the moral of this story is that if there are small noisy humans around, lock up your ladders. If not, respond to the stupid kid on the roof within the first ten times they make a noise, preferably by removing the ladder and saying goodbye. It works faster than, "Getta down-a here!" If you are the kid on the roof and you like it there, keep your mouth shut, and you can stay forever!

Happy weekend, everybody.

Handy gardening tip: vinegar, salt, and dishwashing liquid makes a better vegetation killer than Round-Up. So what if the back of my shed smells like (I say) salad dressing or (Nan says) douche? It's environmentally friendly to whatever it's not killing! And it kills. It kills well. Boiling water also works, but for stuff that is above your head, it's probably not wise to fling boiling water around.

I've worked it out to a tablespoon of salt and a half-teaspoon of dishwashing liquid per cup of vinegar, like 2 cups of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sait, 1 teaspoon of dish liquid. I only used half of that, because that's all I have in the house until next month.

Homemade weedkiller impresses me. Next spring no unwanted things will grow in my cracks. That's a nice thought.

Now if only I could find something that makes Waffles the dog not poop in our driveway. Aside from a cannon aimed at his owners, who deliberately walk him to our house. I have video.

Sounds and Smells of Saturday.