Your New Landscaping Technique is Incomprehensible

Dear The Freaks Who Did My Yard,

I understand the layer of rocks buried under the grass in the area I’m trying to make into a vegetable garden. I really do.

I’m lying.

I don’t understand why anyone would put down a layer of large rocks and then throw dirt on it and plant grass. I don’t understand why that layer of rocks would be at uneven depths, sometimes right below the grass and sometimes six inches down. I REALLY don’t understand why the rocks are all such different sizes. When you buy a bag of rocks from the garden center, they’re generally similar in size. The rocks acquired by professionals such as yourselves are apparently specialized.

My guess about the broken glass is that you christened the flowerbed the way people christen a new ship, but you could not afford champagne because you were being exploited by The Man for your manual labor and so you had to settle for beer. That’s fine. The rusty tacks confused me for a few minutes, until I realized that they must have been used to tack pictures of lovely pin-up girls to the side of the garage so you could gaze upon them to buoy your spirits during the meager breaks afforded to you by the economic and social conditions in which you toiled for so long.

Several other items recovered, such as roofing nails, half a styrofoam cup, and strands of tinsel, must be your efforts to avoid contributing to the landfill crisis in Central Texas. Generations to come will thank you.

But I don’t understand the rocks.

I also don’t understand why, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, you decided to lay down electrical pipe and then pour the patio, with the hole for a flowerbed vaguely in the middle, in such a way that THERE’S AN ELECTRICAL PIPE RUNNING THROUGH MY FLOWERBED. If you had moved the opening in the concrete a mere TWO FEET, I would not be paying an electrician to remove the wiring to the hot tub so I can take up the section of pipe that is blocking me from getting basil and zucchini in the ground.

Basil and zucchini that has been MORE THAN PATIENT with this delay, I would add.

We weren’t planning on removing the hot tub and the blighted, self-disassembling deck that holds it for quite some time. While you were laying electrical pipe through my flowerbeds, your colleagues were busy not finishing the wall that keeps the dirt in our backyard from launching itself on a small-scale mudslide into my guest room whenever it rains. Instead, they built half a wall, and put the deck on top of a bare wash of dirt to make up the distance between the end of the wall and the fence. This I understand – whoever commissioned the wall must have been a cheap bastard, and I’m sure it pained greatly the artisans who built said wall.

But you see, all of this means that before we remove the deck, which sheds planks and nails almost daily, we have to have a plan to keep said dirt in place. Since we do not yet have a plan, we were to be spared the headache and expense of de-electrifying the hot tub this year… until you messed with my impending agriculture.

They say forgiveness starts with understanding. I will expect some form of communication from you shortly.

Thanks ever so,
Me