Rural Georgia comes alive during gardening season, and if you travel on some of our back roads, you'll see corn, tomatoes, squash and other delicious vegetables growing in little family gardens. These gardens are small, but they still require hard work and lots of weeding, fertilizing, watering and pest control. Pest control is probably the most important chore. To a hungry crow a garden's an all-you-can-eat buffet with a landing strip, so plenty of rural Georgians replace the old scarecrow with a bunch of shiny aluminum pie plates that they let dangle in the wind. Crows don't like to eat with all that light bouncing around. It must remind them of those sparkly mirror balls and lasers that were popular back in the disco era. Thinking about disco music would ruin my appetite too.
Maybe you don't have a garden this year, but you'd still like to have a little urban scarecrow fun. Well, OK! Let's say you're fed up with that lawn maintenance service that keeps leaving flyers in your mailbox - the ones that say, "We can save your pathetic, weed-infested grass, if you hire us now!" Is there something that'll scare those guys away? Maybe a shiny bankruptcy notice would do the trick. You can get the forms from most lawyers, and in a few minutes, you can have them (the forms, not the lawyers) hanging from all the trees in your front yard. I know I'd skip your house if you posted bankruptcy forms in your elms. A bankrupt customer is one thing, but dealing with a bankrupt nutcase is just too much.
So, that sounds like it would work nicely, but maybe you're afraid it could lead to some tacky comments from the neighbors. Here's something else you can try. Make up a sign that says, "By order of Health Department: No Entry!" If you put this sign above your doorbell, most sane people will run away. However, most people aren't sane, so you should leave a few nasty surgical masks and bandages on the front porch for good measure. If all else fails, try that aluminum plate trick. While it probably won't scare anyone away, you'll have a great time polishing off a few dozen lemon pies so you can get to those nice, shiny aluminum plates they come in. And if you need any help with those pies, you know who to call... right?
Maybe you don't have a garden this year, but you'd still like to have a little urban scarecrow fun. Well, OK! Let's say you're fed up with that lawn maintenance service that keeps leaving flyers in your mailbox - the ones that say, "We can save your pathetic, weed-infested grass, if you hire us now!" Is there something that'll scare those guys away? Maybe a shiny bankruptcy notice would do the trick. You can get the forms from most lawyers, and in a few minutes, you can have them (the forms, not the lawyers) hanging from all the trees in your front yard. I know I'd skip your house if you posted bankruptcy forms in your elms. A bankrupt customer is one thing, but dealing with a bankrupt nutcase is just too much.
So, that sounds like it would work nicely, but maybe you're afraid it could lead to some tacky comments from the neighbors. Here's something else you can try. Make up a sign that says, "By order of Health Department: No Entry!" If you put this sign above your doorbell, most sane people will run away. However, most people aren't sane, so you should leave a few nasty surgical masks and bandages on the front porch for good measure. If all else fails, try that aluminum plate trick. While it probably won't scare anyone away, you'll have a great time polishing off a few dozen lemon pies so you can get to those nice, shiny aluminum plates they come in. And if you need any help with those pies, you know who to call... right?
David McCoy, a notorious storyteller and proud Yellow Jacket, lives in Conyers, can be reached at davmccoy@bellsouth.net.
