"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
It's grey and raining (yea) and I was musing looking out the window at the
grass growing (yea) when I had a flash-back to the lawn mowing skills of a
previous neighbour.

He liked gadgets and is something of an inventor, he could be famous one
day, really. So I shall call him the Inventor. He built all sorts of
interesting things in the garage involving engines, welding, fibreglass
and oil. You could usually tell when he was creating by the smell. He
wasn't much into gardening but used to keep the place looking neat. The
duplex that we shared had concrete paths and driveways, and there were
some garden beds in the lawn. He didn't have a line trimmer so he used to
do the edges with shears and a cranky old wheel-trimmer. One day he had a
stroke of genius and this time his thoughts were well and truly outside
the square. I missed witnessing the feat by a couple of hours but saw the
result and was told all about it.

His wife was drawn out of the house, a rare event presaging matters of
importance, to stand on the verandah to admire his handiwork. He didn't
have to say "honey look what I've done" as she could smell it as the house
filled with smoke. He had gone around the all edges with a watering can
of petrol and then lit it.

He had remembered to get rid of the watering can so it was mainly the
edges of the grass and concrete that burned in a flash however some garden
beds were edged more than usual. Here and there singed rose bushes
drooped. After things cooled and the smog dissipated each section of
garden was outlined in black. Have you ever seen one of those giant human
outline figures cut into hillsides in some parts of the world? This was
much like that but with excessive eye shadow.

The Inventor had a spare car which we once borrowed when ours was in for
extended service. We had been driving it for a day or two when we went to
put petrol into it and found that it had no petrol cap but a ball of rag
stuffed into the filling pipe. We had been driving a Molotov cocktail
around. When we returned it he explained that this was due to the
unavailability of petrol caps for the model which also explained why the
car wasn't registered. Not having noticed that it wasn't registered I
nodded thoughtfully as I thanked him for his generosity.

On the day of the great lawn edging we came home to find the Molotov
cocktail parked in the driveway. I have since wondered if it was there at
ignition time or if it had been removed and returned. I never asked as
his wife assured us that the experiment would not be repeated.

i like your stories!

but i must be sure not to move into your neighbourhood or i'll end up
famous.
kylie