We Need Potpourri In The Bedroom

I’ve been indisposed for a few days. A buddy of mine has a landscaping business, and he asked me to help him out with a backlog of work so he can get away on vacation in a couple of weeks. I agreed. Big mistake. Never, ever do anyone a favor at any time for any reason. It will bite you in the ass every time. But that’s another saga. I did get a couple of good tales out of this hellacious nightmare, though. Gather ‘round for this one.

I was pushing dirt around the grounds of a half-million dollar, tinker-toy, keep-up-with-the-Jones' shack being constructed in a cow pasture which, with one wave of a developer’s magic wand, is mystically transforming itself into a gated community. You know the place. You have them in your neck of the woods, too. These are the enclaves where big suckers with big dollars move to escape the stench of little suckers with little dollars.

The snot-nosed, thirty-something, pseudo-executive homeowner, who was building this ostentatious palace for himself, his trophy wife and perfect children, visited the job site at least four times daily. He was clearly nervous about the bucks he was bleeding and the debt he was digesting in the construction of this monstrosity and, like any good American, he was venting his frustration by shitting on anybody he deemed beneath him in the world order. These days, the world order presents him with tradesmen and laborers just ripe for shit-catching.

Dandy Boy patrolled the grounds with legal pad in hand, scribbling out his shit list as he conducted his inspections. When his path intersected that of a working stiff, he’d bark orders.

"Move that boulder two feet this way and turn it around. The other side looks better. I can see the screw heads in that deck...hide ‘em. I want this area perfectly level for my kids’ jungle gym. Move that kitchen window two inches to the left."

When he wasn’t complaining about the progress and quality of the project, he was whining about the construction grit and dust on his penny loafers. Four times a day we looked forward to Dandy’s visit with the same anticipation as Gitmo prisoners looking forward to another interrogation session. The Geneva Conventions don’t apply to construction sites, either.

While Dandy was emotionally mutilating a painter, I flashed back to 1977. Saturday Night Fever. The Bee Gees, their collective nuts in a vice, croon a melodramatic ballad in an octave that makes dogs howl. Tony Manero delivers his impassioned can’t-we-all-just-get-along soliloquy: "Ever’body’s dumpin’ on ever’body. Dis guy dumps on dat guy, dat guy dumps on me, I dump on anudder guy. Ever’body’s just a dump dump dumpin’ on ever’body else."

Dandy Boy was a dump dump dumpin’ with the best of them, and I wondered if the chain of dumpin’ ever came back around and paid him a visit. Well, Jupiter must have been aligned with Mars, because his cell phone rang to announce the delivery of his own medicine.

"Hello?"

I’m pretty sure it was the voice of god on the other end of the line, because it reigned over the prairie like a clash of thunder.

"Where the hell are you?"

"Um, I’m uh…I’m…"

"New house?"

"Yeah, heh heh…"

"Build your house on your own goddam time! Get your ass in here! I’m trying to run a business!"

I don’t know who Dandy Boy’s boss is, but he deserves a humanitarian award. The punishment was swift and it fit the crime. An eye for an eye. Dandy’s gonads crawled right up his soft underbelly and nestled in with his tonsils. He looked incredibly tiny as he slithered behind the wheel of his $70,000 SUV and raced back to the temple of money that was funding this cow pasture palace.

It was a sweltering 95 degrees out there in the blazing sunshine of Affluent Acres, but I swear I felt a cool sea breeze wafting over me as I took a piss on the foundation under Dandy’s new bedroom suite.

Yo, Tony. Gimme a call. Ya won’t fuckin’ believe dis. It was beauteeful…