The first week of April I spent some of my time researching locations to relocate to in light of the fact that it was April but felt like February.  North Carolina seemed to be the perfect place to live, temperate climate, lots of lakes, and Cam Newton.  Amazing what a week can do for your state of mind. Winter?  What winter?  If you live in Michigan the only way you can cope with the cruel and awful season called winter is to treat it like that slump buster you had back in college or the last time  you were single (I feel sorry for my wife, she married a slump buster, never marry a slump buster), “Hey, who is that fat chick  trying to get your attention?”  “What fat chick?”  “The one who is waving at you”  “I have no idea who that is.”  At this point I have no idea what winter is and if it tries to re-introduce itself to me, I ‘m going to tell it to fuck off.

That being said, when the weather does finally get nice the knuckleheads typically get outside and start getting themselves in trouble.  That’s great if you are a criminal defense attorney since the primary  demographic of most criminal defense attorneys is knuckleheads, unless you are one of those knuckleheads.

Saturday was a gorgeous day and I managed to fill my day with early morning golf and an afternoon of spreading mulch (wood chips) and doing chores.  We had family friends coming over later in the day for a BBQ and a campfire so prior to their arrival I decided to get a head start on the campfire.  Unfortunately, I had the intention of having a fire a couple weeks ago and I had put two “fire starter” logs in the firepit along with a few other logs and kindling.  Against the advice of Shirley, I left it all in the firepit and since it had rained and snowed quite a bit since I laid the ground work for my first fire everything was quite saturated.  So, I had a small gas can filled with a mixture of oil and gas or gas and oil which I didn’t feel like dumping out in the woods by my house for environmental reasons, and thought utilizing it to start a fire would be the ideal way to dispose of it.  There was a little bit more in the can than I had remembered but I didn’t think it would be a problem so I poured a good deal of it on the contents of the firepit.

So, I set the can on the ledge of the firepit and ignited the aim and flame to start the fire.   Immediately a wall of flame sprang up from the firepit singing what little hair I had left on my head and starting the gas can on fire (fortunately I had sunglasses on which saved my eyelashes and eyebrows).  Meanwhile, Shirley and the boys were 40 feet away setting up a tent, completely oblivious to the pyrotechnics going on at the top of the hill.   I kicked the can off the ledge of the fire pit and it did a cartwheel into the bed of woodchips near the fire pit.  Not only was the gas can still engulfed in flames, it started the woodchips on fire as well as a couple of recently planted shrubs, while also threatening the well being of a small tree.

I proceeded to kick the gas can through our yard and into a nearby field as it continued to flame due to the significant amount of gas/oil remaining in the plastic container, resembling a molotov cocktail.  I moved at a somewhat brisk pace to go retrieve the hose, but I couldn’t move too fast out of fear that Shirley and the kids would be alerted to the potentially explosive situation that was unfolding.  Sure enough, as I made my way to the hose Shirley noticed the wood chips and shrubs that were ablaze and immediately went into panic mode.  “Hurry up! What were you thinking!  How did this happen!”  Luckily I was able to put out the gas can as well as the wood chips and the shrubs, and I think the small ornamental tree is going to pull through.  However, I left the hose running and Tod tried to put out the actual campfire that I had masterfully constructed.  That would have been adding insult to injury if he had somehow managed to extinguish it.

While I had done most of my mulching on Saturday, I still needed a couple of yards of mulch and was traveling back home from Lowes on Sunday.  I stopped in at Fruit Basket Flowerland to grab more mulch due to the fact that Lowes only sells bags of mulch (buying by the bagged mulch makes the cost of mulch about $100 per yard).   I had been purchasing my mulch from Harder and Warner at a price of $27.50 per yard and felt that that was a bit pricey.  However, it was $35 per yard at Fruitbasket and I almost didn’t pull the trigger on my mulch purchase.

Say what you will about how the price of gas is controlled, but at least I know when I purchase gas at Speedway (and sit and stare at their fountain drink dispenser out of pure amazement) that the Shell station down the road isn’t selling it 50 cents per gallon cheaper.  We need something akin to OPEC to control the global price of mulch.  Granted, a good Hollander would have called around to various mulch dispensing businesses and found the cheapest price, then they would have done a thorough cost benefits analysis based upon unit price/price of gas to get there/travel time, to determine where to purchase mulch.  I went based off what I always go off from when I am purchasing something, convenience.

While I chose Fruit Basket for it’s convenience, my plan was about to become quite inconvenient due to an Asian man driving a Toyota Sienna that was pulling a U-Haul trailer. There was no way my description of the U-haul trailer would do it justice so I had to get a picture of it so those reading this could realize how much of an idiot the guy was, especially in light of the fact that U-Haul rents utility trailers, but who knows maybe he was planning on doing some human trafficking later on and needed an enclosed trailer to effectively transport his cargo.

(it took me 45 minutes to figure out how to do that, and it’s sideways, but still I am pretty damn proud of myself for 1. not  throwing my computer out the window or breaking any thing, and 2. for actually getting an image to upload)

So, the guy had order at least a couple yards of stones that were about the size of golf balls (i’m assuming I don’t have to upload a picture of that since pretty much everyone knows how big a golf ball is) and the Bobcat can’t get the scoop into the trailer to unload the stones because Mr. Dipshit decided to go with the 4X8 enclosed trailer instead of an open air gardening/utility trailer.  The worker, who must have smoked at least 8 bowls of marijuana at that point is shoveling the stones out of the scoop of the Bobcat and into the trailer.  The reason I say he must have smoked a ton of pot is because he was shoveling the stones himself instead of making the guy do it himself.  No way anyone who isn’t baked doesn’t hand the shovel to the guy and say “good luck” or do what I would have done and hit the guy over the head with the shovel and bury his body with said shovel.  You could make a mighty nice life in Mexico with a Toyota Sienna and a 4X8 enclosed U-Haul trailer.

Ultimately, the guy finishes shoveling out the stones, at this point I’m assuming he’s coming my way to load me up with the mulch I ordered, nope, he’s heading over for more stones.  Instantly I run over as if my would be mulch is on fire and needs to be extinguished and ask the guy to get my mulch before he loads up the guy with more stones.  Unfortunately, I’m not as fast as I use to be and the guy already has the stones in the scoop.  I politely ask the driver to put the stones back  and get my mulch with a somewhat exasperated look on my face, immediately the Asian guy starts objecting in broken English “he no, he no, he already have stones loaded up!”  The guy unloads the stones in front of the U-Haul trailer and goes to get me my mulch.

As the worker loads up my mulch I turn to look back at the U-haul trailer only to discover that another worker has stepped in to shovel the stones as Mr. Dipshit talks on his phone. (likely arranging a pick up point for the trailer full of illegals he is about to turn a tidy profit on)  While this is complete bullshit, it doesn’t directly affect me so I don’t intervene since Franks worker number 2 seems like a big boy and perfectly capable of sticking up for himself.  Finally my trailer is full and as I take a final look back I see Mr. Dipshit with a shovel in his hand slowly scooping rocks into his trailer.  I bet he opts for the utility trailer next time.