DICK WOLFSIE: LAWN DAYS JOURNEY

DICK WOLFSIE: LAWN DAYS JOURNEY: I have never aerated my lawn. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever written the word “aerated” before. If I did I am sure I misspelled it. I t...

LAWN DAYS JOURNEY

I have never aerated my lawn. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever written the word “aerated” before. If I did I am sure I misspelled it. I think I accidentally went from liquefy to aerate while making a strawberry shake in our blender. That’s the extent of my experience. I guess I aerate my tire when it is flat, but I don’t think that word works with a seven-year-old car. If you own a 2013 Lexus, you aerate. Otherwise, you just put air in your tire.

Despite many years as a homeowner, I first learned about lawn aeration the other day when my wife and I arrived home from a Sunday brunch and saw our neighbor John wrestling with what appeared to be a 200-horsepower lawn machine. The really strange part was that John was not aerating his own lawn, but rather Herb’s lawn—an apparent act of great selflessness, unless you saw he had simply lost control of the behemoth and was desperately trying to steer the machine back to his own front yard. Then Marty, watching John from his living room window, came outside to request that he be given a chance to aerate. Herb also wanted in. This scam was so ingenious that it made Tom Sawyer look like an amateur.

John tried to explain to me why it’s important to aerate a lawn, but most of the explanation required that I actually listen. He did say something about golf greens that got my attention. And I kept hearing the word “plugs,” which made me mildly interested because I once had a hair transplant. During the operation, the surgeon put over a thousand plugs in my head. My hair does look a lot thicker now, so I’m trying to keep an open mind about aeration.

I watched Herb try to aerate. Herb, who can only claim 5'8" in his wife’s high heels, was being whipped into unspeakable contortions and had to push the emergency button after he aerated Marty’s newly paved driveway. I’m opposed to deadly asphalt weapons, but John told me that the Second Amendment covers lethal lawn equipment, as well.

Herb  chose to wear shorts, socks and sandals during this demonstration, so we all got a pretty good picture of what would happen if people from a third world country went to Jack’s Tool Rental on a Sunday morning. By the way, Herb’s lawn is full of topiaries, shrubs meticulously manicured to depict various species of wild life. John goes out each morning and circles every bush about 20 times before making a single stab at with his shears. Does anyone really need that many rounds for one clip.

After observing my neighbors gleefully involved in raising their testosterone levels, I agreed to try aeration myself. I declined doing my own lawn, having arranged several years ago for nine moles to do the job for me. I took hold of the handles, pressed the bar and was quickly propelled into action.

I had never realized how exciting it would be to poke holes in a neighbor’s lawn. It was fun, but four seconds was long enough. John could see I was uncomfortable with an aerator in the neighborhood, but he put my mind at ease. “Aerators don’t poke holes in lawns. People poke holes in lawns,” he told me. That made in feel a little better. But I still think there should be backyard checks on people who want to own aerators.

MOOSE CALLS

 MOOSE CALLS

Warning: There’s another case of food impropriety in the news. A popular frozen dinner option is being removed from ovens over in Scandinavia in another half-baked scandal. Families were waiting to feast on Moose Lasagna, but as the cheese was becoming bubbly and browned, food officials exposed that there was pork in some of these prepared selections. Everyone in Sweden is asking: What is pork doing in my lasagna? People in the U.S. are asking: What is moose doing in your lasagna?

Jews in Sweden, all fourteen of them, were upset because the company revealed that the 17,000 portions sold contained one percent pork—which the company admitted meant the product was not 100 percent Kosher.  Or as my rabbi would say, “Not Kosher.” The bottom line is that even though the manufacturer is pulling the pork-tainted casserole off the shelves, the entrée is still a favorite of many consumers.  After all, who doesn’t like pulled pork?

For the second time in two months, it’s the conglomerate IKEA that is responsible for this food fiasco. Wanting to be proactive in this debacle, the company set up an 800 number so customers could, in their words, “lodge a moose lasagna complaint.” Everyone thought this seemed like a good idea except the local Moose Lodge, where they got a lot of crank phone calls.

IKEA is basically a furniture company that also sells frozen food, a technique to expand sales like the U.S. Postal Service decision to sell safari hats and dorky shorts so you can look like your letter carrier. IKEA has had a history of mislabeling products, once advertising futons as beds, a ruse that almost worked until people got them home and tried to sleep on them.

The details of the porcine-laced lasagna were first revealed by the Swedish newspaper Dagbkadet. Coincidentally, dagbkadet is exactly what a Kentucky farmer says if he finds not moose, but a mouse, in his lasagna. One French newspaper scared the beejeebers out of their readers when they inadvertently mistranslated the story and Parisian diners thought there was meat in their mousse. Even hairstylists got the facts wrong and thought there was pork in their styling products.

Frozen dessert manufacturers were touched by the recall when Rocky Road and Moose Track Ice Cream began to generate a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle jokes on the web.  Even Sarah Palin, famous for her Alaskan commentary, tweeted that she could see Natasha from her house.

IKEA always thought there were sales opportunities for moose-related products and they hope this scandal won’t depress the market. They are now looking at how to make a moose jerky. Which is like asking: How do you drive a baby buggy? I think in both cases you have to tickle something.

IKEA is not sure how to win back their customers after so many have suffered this unjust ingestion. PR experts found a snappy slogan they will use to promote the product to ensure people know the issue has been addressed. “You’ve got game!”

Of course, here in America, lasagna manufacturers are basically honest about what is in the product.  For example, on the Stouffer’s box in my freezer there are 54 ingredients listed—yummy stuff like sodium nitrate, BHA, BHT, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate. As long as their entrée tastes good, I’ll consume all of those chemicals, but I do have my limits.  ANY WHICH WAY BUT MOOSE.