A Little Peace and Quiet Please

One of the reasons I stayed out in the burbs after my kids grew up is because I liked coming home to quiet. No street noise, except the sounds of children laughing and playing. Or one person talking to another. I could even look up at night and see the stars. In the morning it was nice to wake up to the sounds of birds chirping and walk outside to the smell of grass and the wind rustling through the trees.

Not so much anymore. The suburbs are no longer a refuge from ANYTHING. Between the lawncare people and the construction gangs, I might as well be living next to the elevated tracks.

While I'm at it, what this world needs is a law against lawn mowers. Okay that will never happen. Unless we get rid of lawns. There's a thought. 

How about somebody inventing a lawn mower that runs on pennies. I didn't say FOR pennies like a gas saving device or something.  I said it should run ON pennies. You put a penny in and it starts. That's one way to use up those useless little coins. Maybe there's a way to melt whatever metal they're made of these days, since all the copper is gone to make gutters for the house under construction across the street. Melt the metal in the pennies until it vaporizes and becomes a new source of fuel. Aha! I should have been a scientist.

Oh, and the motor should be silent. You don't hear any noise except the sound of grass screaming when it's cut. And don't tell me to get an electric mower. I want nothing to do with wires and blades together like that. One misstep and voila!! burnt toast.

Today I was in a meeting with four other people on somebody's porch and the postage stamp lawn two houses down had four guys wih mowers the size of tanks beating the grass into submission. For freaking EVER. Up and back. Up and back. All right, already.

Almost at the same time we all stopped talking and said, "How long is that going to take?"  Naturally, as soon as we started moaning and groaning, the noise ended.

Within seconds, it sounded like they'd moved everything over to the lawn of the house on the other side of the porch, which was under construction and didn't actually have a lawn. It had rocks and gravel. "No," we were informed. "That is not the sound of a lawn mower. That is the sound of a saw cutting stone."  Ni-i-i-ice.

Could somebody invent a MUFFLER for all those construction machines? The things with the shovels on the end that dig holes. And the huge trucks that park with their assends blocking my driveway. I thought the housing boom was BUST. But you wouldn't know it around here. 

And the cicadas haven't even STARTED making their insane noise yet.