No Luck

I was picking up dog shit. A guy came over from the house that was diagonal to the garden I was in. He'd that kind of expression on his face that said: friend I'm going to ask you a question. I put the yellow paddle of a spade down. It's hard to be friendly when you stink of shit. Your nose rides up and you tend to squint. It promotes the kind of attitude that smells up the world the wrong way.

'I spoke to you before about that tree-over there.' He waved airily behind him.

I didn't have to look. I can count all the trees I've chopped down on one hand.

I followed him to look at the job he was talking about. It was kinda cool because he'd a huge stretch of foliage and in the faraway wall he had a door. I was thinking 'Secret Garden' and being transported back to another time. The road outside wasn't busy, but it was vaguely familiar. I knew where I was, but because I'd come out from somewhere that was different I was confused in the same way that old couple were whose Sat Nav told them to take a right into the next lake.

The garden he wanted to look at was on a hill. Rich people always put there houses on hills. That way they can look down on the peasants below and sneer. I was apologetic. Because it was on a hill I'd need a Flymo. And I didn't have one in my van.

Rich people always build houses for their relatives near them.

I wanted to get back through the enchanted door before it shut and locked us in a different dimension where everybody speaks very proper. He did say shit and was apologetic because he had on a pair of slippers and couldn't keep up with me.

I don't usually feel sorry for rich folk, but when he apologized for letting things going to pot because his son died of a brain tumour I made an exception. There were mitigating circumstances. His daughter had died first.

I explained there was no need to feel sorry. That people like me were glad to take money from him for jobs he didn't like doing.

It was back to the shit shovel.