June 2, 1997

Not Butch Enough

I can put oil into my car and use gardening shears, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

I finally went out to the backyard this morning and studied the sprinkler pipe break. After digging it up some and turning on the backyard water in order to see where the water was coming out, I came to an important conclusion.

It was time to bring in the professionals.

I went upstairs and got out the Yellow Pages. Who does pipes in your backyard? I looked up plumbers, who seemed cheery about fixing my shower and my sink, but no one mentioned dirt, weeds, or timed waterings of plants.

I looked up gardeners, who wanted to play in my dirt and weeds, but wanted nothing to do with sprinklers.

Finally I went to the Table of Contents in the Yellow Pages. Ever looked here? There's a lot of great information. I looked under Garden & Lawn, and found:

Gardeners
Landscaping Equipment and Supplies
Lawn and Garden Equipment and Supplies
Lawn Mowers
Nurseries (Retail)
Nurseries (Wholesale)
Pest Control Services
Sod and Sodding
Topsoil
Tree Services

I quickly realized what I needed was "landscaping," so I called a few landscaping companies, all of which had the important words "sprinkler repair" and "contractor license" in their ads. I guess I have to have a few guys come out, look at it, and tell me how much this is going to cost.

There are benefits to home ownership. Having to take care of everything that breaks is not one of them.

I had to change Friday's entry, because I just remembered how the evening actually turned out. It involved more house stuff.