Annual Rant

Every spring, just about the time I'd like to throw open my windows and doors and let the fresh breezes blow away the indoor smog is also just about the time every pesticide truck in town shows up on our street. The acrid pong of a new-sprayed lawn cuts through the delicate scents of lilacs and other flowering bushes like ammonia salts through a dead faint.

Another neighbour succumbed to the siren call of of the Weed Man. He showed up early one a.m., soaked the front and back lawn with liquid death. He tagged it with WARNING signs and sat in his truck filling out forms while the neighbour's dog and a group of kids waiting for the bus, sat, rolled and generally immersed themselves in the poison-soaked grass.

My next-door neighbour also sprays. I had to close my balcony doors last week because he was playing with his Raid - trying to nail some ants. I think he used a whole can on one corner of the house. His wife was playing on the lawn with her baby & told me she was worried about the Gypsy Moth pesticide that was arial-sprayed last week (it was a bacterial spray). I wish I was a braver person and could say what I really thought which was, "Why the hell are you spraying poison on your grass? Don't you know one in two people are getting cancer these days?". The neighbour across the street found 3 ants in her house and called the exterminator in to fumigate the entire house. Since when does 3 ants make an infestation? Ever heard of 'ant traps'? Squishing them with your foot/thumb/hammer? Finding out if they just came in on some clothing?

Five women around the corner are suffering, or have died from breast cancer. Their ages are/were 30 - 70 yrs. Seriously folks - if it kills bugs 'n weeds, it'll kill you.