By Elvis P. McNasty, Lifelong Bentonian and Contributing Writer
The Sweet Potato
Well, I’ve decided Mother Nature has it out for me personally. I don’t know what I did to make her mad — maybe I ran over one of her squirrels back in 1983, or maybe she just can’t stand an old man who minds his own business. Either way, she’s turned Benton, Kentucky into some kind of cruel science experiment this year.
First, she dumped more rain on us in the spring than Noah saw in his whole boat ride. I had mushrooms growing in my mailbox and minnows spawning in my wheelbarrow. You couldn’t mow your yard without getting the tractor stuck, and if you left a five-gallon bucket outside, it’d be filled to the brim by morning. The ducks down at the pond were grinning ear to ear like they’d just been elected mayor.
Then — without warning — the tap got shut off like someone forgot to pay the water bill. Now we’re in a drought so bad the grass crunches under your feet like potato chips.
My neighbors are acting like they’re pioneer survivors. One fella down the street is bragging he hasn’t mowed his lawn in six weeks. “Ain’t it great?” he says. Great? My yard looks like the surface of the Moon, and the dust cloud behind my car when I back out of the driveway is so thick the government is probably tracking it on satellite.
So here I sit, stuck in Benton, smack dab between drowning and dying of thirst. You’d think maybe, just once, the weather could pick a lane. But no — it’s just another plot in the ongoing conspiracy to make my life difficult. I’ve tried positive thinking but that’s overrated.
Anyway, I’ve got to go sweep the dust off my porch again. Maybe if I complain loud enough, the sky will finally take pity and send a thunderstorm right over my house. But knowing my luck, it’ll just rain on Calvert City instead. I can never catch a break.
And you kids stay off my yard.
— EPM