I Don't Know Why I Haven't Killed Him Yet

I tend to give nicknames; Kitsu is KitsuSweetSue, Sachi is BabyCat, I am (intermittently) GrumpoGirl. The Engineer has several nicknames: SnoreBoy, BelovedSpousalUnit, DoctorDemento, ChainsawBob. He's earned them all.

He acquired the ChainsawBob moniker about a month after we moved into this house when he went up on the roof with a chainsaw and cut any branch that hung over the roof. If an airplane flew over the house, the view would be of a perfect, house-shaped, cut-out in the greenery. Whenever he goes to a Master Gardener function with me, everyone calls him Bob. The past president won't let him into her yard until she's frisked him for power tools.

He always waits until I leave before he wrecks his master works.

The vinca jungle used to be full of irises and assorted bulbs and perennials. No more. Whenever he thinks it's looking a little too untamed, he scalps it with the lawn mower. He's killed most all of the flowers, only the vinca, the mighty daylily and the yellow rose survive. He cuts any shrub or small tree into either a ball or a rectangle. He regularly weed whacks my daylilies and violets.

Two summers ago, he decided the juniper on the driveway side of the yard overhung the road too much, so he "took care of it." He cut off all the green outer layer of the old juniper, leaving the bare scrubby trunks and inner branches exposed. I told him it wouldn't grow back. He didn't believe me. It's been two years. It hasn't grown back.

Today I went to the farmers' market, the dry cleaner and the grocery store -- my errands gave him lots of time -- and ChainsawBob struck again

When I got back, he was
strutting around with his chest puffed out and a self-satisfied grin on his face. Big Trash Day, the day that the city picks up anything you put on the curb, is a week away, and he's made himself the biggest pile in the neighborhood. He butchered the driveway side of the juniper he whacked two years ago, essentially giving it a mohawk, and mutilated the junipers in front of the house. The man is damn lucky that I have no idea of where my baseball bat is. I think I would have used it on him today.