quirks

Everybody has their little quirks.

I know what mine are. I never finish an entire can of soda, would eat pizza every night for dinner, hate to go to the dentist, never match the sox from the laundry and refuse to reach into any crevice that may harbor a toad, snake or other unsightly vermin.

I thought I knew Rico's too - thought I knew what I was getting into. I knew about the habitual email checking, his particular need for crunchy peanut butter, and the fleece pants he refuses to throw away.  I knew all of it - and still, I married him.

But nobody told me about the dandelions.

The dandelions could be it.

In the interest of the earth, our tree-climbing middle child and our grass-nibbling youngest child,we made a joint decision to not have our lawn chemically treated. Seemed like a good idea at the time.  What I didn't realize, is that Rico intended to keep up his personal vendetta against every dandelion within 25 yards of our front door.

He spends hours outside with gloves and a butter knife, prying broadleaf out of the grass.  I knew it was getting serious when he came home with a wicked gleam in his eye and said, "Hey - guess what I got for us?"

It wasn't often he looked this excited.  I could only imagine what it was - a babysitter for Friday night? Tickets to a dinner theater? Candles? Roses? That new George Clooney movie from Redbox?

A dandelion picker.
Not kidding.
A big wooden stick with an even bigger fork on the end of it.

He was positively beaming when he held it out to me, and I don't think I was imagining the smug look of disappointment on his face when he said, "I reallllly thought you'd notice and give me one, but since you didn't I had to go buy it myself."

For real?
If he had given ME a gift like that, I most certainly would have found another use for it.

I don't even think I had time to gather my thoughts and form a complete sentence, before he had grabbed his paint bucket and his new prized possession and headed to the front yard to obsess with his new love.

I guess it could be worse - or maybe not.

Right now my biggest fear is that I'll come back from grocery shopping to find him talking in hushed tones on his cell phone. I'll check the bill to find that he's made 47 calls in the past month to a horticulturist. I'll find weed&feed catalogs under his side of the mattress. The history on our computer will be backlogged with sadistic videos of dandelion torture.

Here's hoping for an early freeze.