Episode 77: Maintenance day

Ahhh the sweet smells of spring. The budding flowers, the fresh smell of the air after a quick rain shower and, my personal favorite, the combination of fresh cut grass and two-cycle lawn mower fuel. Seriously, is there any better scent? It makes me think of running home from school to ride my bike or play wiffle ball with my friends, or the two summers I spent buzzing around the projects on a zero-turn lawn mower as a sex-hungry 19-year-old working for the Pittsfield Housing Authority. (Yes, in Western Mass even the projects have yards. It is actually kind of nice.)

All of those emotions and memories came rushing back today at Forrest River, where it was clearly the first day of the spring maintenance schedule at the parks department. Actually, it seemed to be spring cleaning day throughout the city, as Av and I were displaced from the house at around 9 a.m. due to street sweeping in the neighborhood. Sure, we could have just moved the car about six-blocks away and stayed home, but at that point you might as well keep driving, right?

The city was actually supposed to sweep our street about three weeks ago. They even put up posters on every telephone pole warning us to move our cars. After a full day of me sneakily parking on the sidewalk and staring out the windows in paranoia of getting towed, they never showed up. It kind of pissed me off, not just because of the inconvenience of moving the car, but because we have far and away the dirtiest street in the city. Because of a combination of careless garbage men, snot-nosed, bastard street kids and a large amount of stray cats and pigeons terrorizing the trash, a lot of what we throw out ends up collecting in the gutters and against the curb. Welcome to the ghetto.

After blowing us off the first time the city decided that it would reschedule our neighborhood clean up for today, which would have been fine if they had hung up the glowing orange posters telling us to move our cars yesterday, instead of like 4:00 this morning. Instead, only the people that were going to work anyway saw the posters, meaning that the police had to come around and inform the rest of us- in their ever so subtle way- that we had to move our cars. So, around 9 a.m., just as I was getting Av dressed after her bath, I hear loud, frantic sirens outside the apartment. I looked out the window to see what was going on to find an officer in a yellow wind breaker writing me a ticket. Wearing a silver track suit and slippers and carrying a half-dressed baby I sprinted downstairs to stop him.

As is always the case when dealing with the police, Mr. Officer Man was very polite and pleasant.

"Excuse me, do you need me to move that?"

"Hey- this your car?!"

"Yes, is there a problem?"

"Street sweeping today, read the signs."

"Umm, Ok, thanks, I didn't see them, I thought they already swept this street."

"Schedule changed. It's on the sign."

"Ok. Sorry. Are you still going to write me a ticket? Or can I just move the car? "

"Sweeper is coming in ten minutes. Just get it out of here because we WILL tow it."

Oooook. I suppose I should be thankful that he tore up the ticket, but did he really have to be such a dick about it? I swear they teach them how to completely abandon all politeness and social skills in the academy. Anyway, I ran back upstairs to get Av dressed and change out of the track suit, racing against the street-sweeper clock. Making it out in time, we left for a grocery shopping trip. Once we finished that I quickly ran home, defiantly threw the car on the sidewalk, put the perishables away, packed a snack and headed for the park.

I bring up that it was lawn mowing day at the park not just because I love the smell, but also because it had an unexpected result that really brightened my mood after the whole police officer interaction: It scared the living daylights out of every single kid on the playground.

Av and I first saw the workers tooling around on the zero-turn mowers when we were getting out of the car, so she already knew that they were there. I don't think the same could be said for those other kids. It was kind of a chilly day so there were only four or five little guys at the playground, but literally every single one of them screamed and sprinted over to their parents when the mowers came over the hill. One little boy was hysterically crying, another hid under the picnic table. It was like watching a bad horror movie, or any kid's party with a clown. For her part, Av loved the mowers. She was a little bit afraid of them at first, but she never cried. She just ran over to me where she knew she would be safe, pointed and yelled "WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW!"

Yeah, I was pretty proud at that moment. My 1-year-old is a lot braver than your yuppie, pansy 3-year-old. By the way, nice fanny pack. Way to get that kid going on the right track.

The lawn mower scare was great because most of the families left the playground while the workers were cutting the grass around it, leaving us and a 3-year-old girl named Erica, who was there with her nanny. The crazy nanny had to be in her 60's, and she kept giving me advice on great things to do with kids. Like take them down slides, or to the beach to collect sea shells. Thanks, lady. You have opened my eyes to a new world of activities that I never knew existed. God I hate social interaction.

As fun as the park trip was, it was ruined at the end because tired, grouchy no-nap Av started to fuss, but not before a crazy old man threw about three loaves of bread next to the car, setting us up for some close encounters with the local wildlife. Again, most kids would be terrified of ducks, seagulls and pigeons swarming around them in a ravenous search for food, but Av loved it. In fact, she tried her best to catch the ducks, yelling and chasing them around. I was pretty sure she was going to get attacked by a seagull at one point, but that didn't end up happening so all in all it was a good experience. Too bad she had to take a crap car nap because I couldn't get back to the house. How long does it take to sweep a street, anyway?