Michael Keith

 What's Wrong with Dandelions?

Despite their cheery yellow blossoms and reputed benefits as a nutritious food source, dandelions are universally excoriated as pesky weeds that disfigure lawns and detract from their intended aura.  No one embraced this view more devoutly than Harold Roberts, who was committed to the total prohibition of the insidious sprouts in the narrow apron of sod that ringed his tidy bungalow.  While dandelions were not the only bane of his existence, they were among the foremost.  Indeed, they were far more aggravating to Harold than the fringes on his living room rug that constantly needed straightening or the water spots that inevitably reappeared in the stainless steel kitchen sink despite his aggressive effort to eradicate them.  He had to be forever vigilant lest these things got out of hand and ruined his day as they had so many times.

            At the first sign that his lawn was awakening following its long winter hibernation, Harold sprang into action methodically spreading weed herbicide on every square inch of it.  He would then conscientiously and enthusiastically reapply the chemical according to the instructions outlined on the label taking great pains to use the precise amount to avoid damaging his prized grass.  Harold’s well-coiffed lawn was an object of enormous pride to him and its meticulous appearance reflected his own.  He was by any measure of the word a dandy, and even when he labored in his garden and yard, his outfit was thoughtfully coordinated and scrupulously pressed. 

            Much on Harold’s mind the past winter was his new next-door neighbors, Martin and Sara Benoit, who seemed friendly enough but had yet to demonstrate their approach to the care and maintenance of their lawn.  His previous neighbors were anything but horticulturists but they did share his disdain for weeds and that was all he asked of the neighbors whose yards bordered his.  His other next-door neighbor was accommodating of Harold’s strong feelings on this subject, so for the 14 summers Harold had spent in his house there were no loathsome dandelions in evidence in his little enclave.  This contributed to what small peace of mind Harold enjoyed.

            In mid-April Harold’s company sent him to Akron for a two-week seminar on new state and federal income tax laws, and when he returned home late at night his headlights caught something that made him shudder as he turned into his driveway.  The Benoit’s lawn was covered with dandelions, and the very sight of them made Harold swoon.  It took all of his energy to make it into his house where he collapsed into his recently reupholstered wingback chair that accented his freshly painted and papered living room.  The sight of the dandelions churned his stomach and caused him to hyperventilate.

            “Oh, my God,” he mumbled breathlessly again and again while wringing his hands and shaking his head, and then he rose and went to the window with the purpose of counting the invaders rooted in his neighbor’s lawn.

            “Thirty-one!  Good lord, thirty-one!” he blurted out incredulously and then dashed to the bathroom to vomit.

            Harold spent the remainder of the night fighting the urge to wake his neighbors and demand an explanation for their flagrant neglect of their yard.  Twice before daybreak he went to their door with the intention of having it out with them, but he managed to resist the impulse, returning to his house without looking at the iniquitous dandelions.

            By the time the sun finally rose, sleep had overtaken Harold, but as soon as he awoke, he headed to the offender’s house with reenergized resolve to make clear his dissatisfaction.

            After pressing hard and long on the Benoit’s doorbell, he was greeted by his groggy neighbor, who invited him in for a cup of coffee.  But Harold had only one thing on his mind and quickly made that very clear.

            “What’s going on?” asked Harold, accusingly.

            “Huh?” replied Martin yawning widely.

            “Look, for heaven’s sake!” snapped Harold pointing at the dandelion riddled lawn.

            “What?  Is there something wrong?”

            “Obviously,” said Harold verging on hysterics.  “You’ve got dandelions all over your lawn.”

            “Oh,” answered, Martin. “So what’s the problem?”

            “The problem is we don’t allow dandelions here.  They’re weeds and they look horrible,” replied Harold indignantly.

            “What, are you the Flower Cops?” returned his neighbor with a bemused expression.

            “They’re not flowers!  They’re disgusting ugly weeds that ruin everything . . . everything!” Harold protested stamping his left foot for emphasis.

            “Look, what’s on my lawn is none of your business.  If I like dandelions, what’s it to you?  It doesn’t affect your life.”

            “It certainly does!” exclaimed Harold.  “I have to see them every time I come and go, and I find it really offensive.”

            “You got to be kidding, right?”

            “I certainly am not kidding,” spit Harold now stamping his right foot.  “This is an affront to my sensibilities, and you should be ashamed. I thought you people were decent and respected the feelings of others, but you’re obviously cretins.”

            “Hey, get out of here before I boot you off my property” replied the Martin, who then shut the door in Harold’s face.

            Harold raced back to his house with his hands cupped like blinders at the sides of his eyes determined to report his neighbor’s threat to the authorities, but then he thought better of the idea, suspecting they may view his complaint as frivolous or even accuse him of trespassing.  While he regarded the matter as dire, they probably would not.  Besides he had concocted a plan to address the crisis himself. 

            For the balance of the day, Harold remained in his bedroom with the curtains tightly drawn to avoid even a glimpse of his neighbor’s derelict lawn.  When night came and he was confident his neighbors had gone to bed, he loaded his spreader with weed killer and set out to realign the planets of his universe.  Slowly and cautiously he emptied the spreader of its contents and to be sure that every last dandelion was appropriately and effectively dispatched, he repeated the process. 

            Within a few days, his neighbor’s lawn was not only devoid of weeds but absent of a single green blade of grass.  Harold had rendered it a desert, and while he had not intended such devastation, he was relieved the dandelions were gone.  On the other hand, his neighbor was incensed by what he felt to be a crime not only against him but against nature, and he was thoroughly convinced the culprit of his lawn’s demise was Harold, who had kept a very low profile since their early morning encounter in his doorway.

            “That prissy little creep did it,” he complained to his wife while surveying his incinerated yard. 

            “How do you know that?” she responded, hoping to allay his wrath, something with which she was not entirely unfamiliar.

            “I told you he went all nutty over the stupid dandelion’s.  He acted like we were dumping our garbage in front of the house, for chrissakes!  Well, he’ll get his.”

            “Please don’t go causing any trouble,” Sara pleaded, knowing well how he could get carried away when his back was up.

            “Bullshit!  Look what he did to us without any provocation.  A few dandelions and he goes ballistic on us.”

            “Exactly why you don’t want to do anything.  Think what he might be capable of,” reasoned his wife, but her husband was not having any of what she said.

            That night Martin went to the field a block down from his house and collected hundreds of dandelions in a giant trash bag and returned home where he patiently monitored his neighbor’s residence until all its lights had been extinguished.  He then plied Harold’s lawn with his wilted but still golden bounty spreading it about for maximum effect.  When he returned to his house, his wife admonished him for his childish behavior, and Martin just chuckled in anticipation of his neighbor’s reaction the next morning as he drove his car from the garage. 

            “That should start his day with a bang,” he laughed as he set the bedroom alarm clock to make certain he was up in time to witness Harold’s response to his handiwork.

            After his customary breakfast of Wheatina and Bluebird grapefruit juice Harold found himself devoting the better part of a half hour rearranging the fringes on his troublesome rug, which for some reason would simply not line up to his precise specifications.  Only when he noticed the time was he able to tear himself away from the frustrating and ever-insistent task.

            The garage door had barely lifted a foot off the ground when he knew something was terribly wrong.   The higher the door opened the more his anxiety level rose until he was about to leap through the windshield.   What at first appeared confined to his precious swatch of land now extended as far as he could see.  Before him was an infinite sea of dandelions.

            Revulsion seized him and his foot hit the accelerator causing his car to shoot out of the garage and careen into the Benoit’s house striking Martin where he stood next to a window.   When the police arrived on the scene they had to pry Harold’s body out of his car and Martin’s from under it.

            Sara was thrown from her bed on the second floor as Harold’s car slammed into the house and she instantly called 911 knowing something dreadful had just occurred.  The police found her sitting next to the wreck but could not exact any information from her because she had gone into deep shock.   It was several days before she was able to answer investigator’s questions about the mishap, and then she drifted in and out of lucidity.

            “It was the dandelions,” she offered when asked if she knew what had happened.

            “Say again?” requested the police detective.

            “The dandelions . . . the dandelions killed them,” she muttered, her eyes drifting away from her inquisitor.

            “You mean those pretty little flowers?” he inquired half-smiling.

            “They’re not flowers.  They’re dandelions,” she responded before closing her eyes and returning to the darkened landscape of her dream world.