Watering Sandspurs

By Bill Yanger


It’s been a while but this is another in a continuing series of imagined conversations over coffee at the Rod & Reel Pier. Any resemblance to persons or personalities, real or imagined, is entirely coincidental and mostly unintended.


Good morning.

Hey stranger! Where the heck you been?

Me? I’ve been right here where I’ve always been, sipping coffee. Where you been?

Fishin’.

Ahhh yes, tarpon season. Right.

Yep, and it has been glorious. Look at these callouses…

You have that summer flip flop tan, like two white arrows pointing those gnarly toes in the right direction. All appears copacetic with your world, my brother.

Can’t really complain, though I’m getting a lot of heat at home. She pretends like she doesn’t recognize me cuz I’ve been out in the pass so much lately.

You’d think she’d consider that a blessing.

You’re just as funny as ever. Anyway, no fishing til later today. Gotta head into town for something.

Huh? You? Across the…I can’t even say it…the b-b-bridge?

I know, I know. I think the last time was the Hurricane Charley evacuation and that was with a deputy sheriff’s…uh…assistance.

So what’s so earth rattling that it yank’s you off your boat during the best tarpon season in decades and drags you to the mainland you are so allergic to?

Gotta handle a fine.

Ah, speeding ticket. On a bicycle?

Not a speeding ticket.

Child support thing?

Dude, my kids have been grown and gone for 15 years.

Forget your fishing license? Keep an undersized pompano? Marine Patrol finally red flag that scary thing you call a boat?

No, no and no. And I like my boat. It’s functional. It catches fish.

Yeah, like a rotting mango catches flies. Anyway, what’s with the fine?

For watering my lawn.

Watering your lawn? Hah! You mean that sandspur collection?

Sandspurs are perfectly acceptable native plants. They have every right to grow in my little yard just like other weeds, even if they are a little prickly.

Uh, yeah, whatever you say but why the hell did you water them?

I didn’t. Some guy did.

Some guy. He live around here? A neighbor?

No, he has some family property over on Gulf Drive but he lives in Holmes Beach.

So why’d you ask him to water your sandspurs?

I didn’t. He did it on his own. Well, not really all on his own, he borrowed some rinky dink whirly-bird sprinkler, hooked up a leaky hose and let'r rip without another thought. Shoot, the half-assed thing leaked all over the place and didn’t even come close to hitting the problem spots, just wasted a bunch of water and now maybe my money.

But why would he do that?

Don’t know. Guess he wanted to be seen as some kind of community hero, addressing the sandspur crisis all on his own. One of my neighbors even warned him there might be this big fine for it. Shrugged his shoulders and did it anyway.

He did it anyway? Well, tell Mr. Hero to pay the damn fine himself.

Apparently I can’t, at least not without paying a bunch more money to chase him. It’s my yard, my water bill, not his.

Well, let’s think about this a minute.

Don’t hurt yourself.

No really, your yard was dry, right?

Toasty, yes.

And water might have helped, at least someone thought so, right?

Maybe…probably not…but for the sake of your little brain game, yes.

You could have watered it yourself, right?

I could have, yes.

But you chose not to because….

Because it was a lost cause.

And even though this guy was warned that there’d be a fine, he did it anyway, half-assed, but he kept at it.

Yes, he did. Where’s this going?

Stick with me. This is brilliant. So, let’s just say this guy’s effort was so lame, so completely incompetent, that it did nothing for the parched yard whatsoever, just wasted water he and everyone else should have known would be wasted. Would that be a correct statement?

Correctamundo.

Perfect. Finish your coffee. Let’s go.

Go where?

To the water department in town dummy! We are going to march right in there and tell them that since Mr. Hero’s help was so inept, so completely worthless, you are not responsible for what he did and you’re not gonna pay one red cent unless and until a judge tells you to. C’mon, let’s go Champ!

Whoa, hold on there Hoss. So let me get this straight. You, my trusted confidant who I depend on to save my butt from serious trouble, you’re advising me not to pay the fine? You want me to make them take me to court? You want me to spend more time and more money trying to persuade a judge with some cockamamie reasoning why I should not pay a fine that the law says I owe?

Well…uh…yeah, exactly. There a problem?

Oh, no! No problem at all. We’ll just march in there and…geez, c’mon man. No way. If I wanted that kind of advise I’d have called our city attorney and asked him.

The city attorney? What the heck are you talking about?

You’ll hear about it soon enough I’m sure. But thanks anyway, I gotta get into town and back before the outgoing tide. There’s a 200 pound silver sweetheart calling my name.

Uh, okay, but see you tomorrow?

Yeah, tomorrow.



©2010 – William L. Yanger