Dear Kid,
News from the War on Weeds
Update from the frontline. The weeds are continuing their encroachment. Every day hour minute another patch of land disappears under the onslaught. Send reinforcements.
And send reinforcements I did.
There is a new product from Roundup (that they’re not even paying me to write about—heck, they don’t even know I’m alive) called Roundup gel.
They stole my idea and made it better.
I’ve been thinking for a long time that the problem with spray weed killers (aside from the part about Dad not liking them At All) is that it’s almost impossible to hit the weeds without hitting some of the not-weeds (not to be confused with knotweed).
Weeds are tricky little devils and often grow as stinkin’ close to not-weeds as possible. (And by “as close as possible” I mean definitely invading personal space.)
My (brilliant) solution was that they should make a weed killer that can be painted on the leaves of plants so as to attack the ones you want to get rid of while not harming the rest. Genius, yes?
(Watch it, kiddo. It would be rude to ask why I didn’t just go get a paintbrush and try it.)
Roundup has taken my idea (that they didn’t even know about) and gone one further. They’ve created a gel. Think gel deodorant. It’s a pushup kind of thing and you sort of glide the gel where you want it to go. And weeds die.
I was in love from the first commercial.
So I went to one of the big stores which I won’t name but has the initials HD and asked the “helpful” guy near the door where to find it. He told me he’d heard of it but it was too new a product and they didn’t have it yet. I didn’t really believe him (who puts that much money into commercials and then doesn’t stock the stores?) but I didn’t feel like arguing.
This past weekend, the Puppy and I went to Lowes (I’d checked the website and knew there were 11 of the gel thingies at that particular location).
After the Puppy had been suitably adored by his adoring public and I had been unsuccessful in finding the gel, I asked a helpful person in the plant area. She gave me a look like I’d grown another head (clearly these people do not spend enough time watching TV) but she gamely pulled out her looker-upper technology and looked it up. Sure enough, Aisle 22. She offered to help me look, but I told her I was sure we’d find it.
I was wrong.
After 4,227 minutes of intense looking in Aisle 22, I went in search of another helpful person. Repeat look, repeat looking up, repeat Aisle 22. This time I accepted the offer of helping to look. We three (helpful person, Puppy, and I) stared intently at the shelving. Nope, nada. All of a sudden, Helpful Person made a grab for the shelves. Hanging Right There in front of our noses was a hanging display of Roundup Gel. TA-DA! We all laughed (because it would have bitten us if we’d had teeth).
I bought 2.
I used up one entire gel attacking a few of the worst invaders on the property (and by worst invaders I mean poison oak and dandelions).
Point of interest: do you know what happens when you brush against poison oak while you’re trying to kill it? You get poison oak. Fortunately, just a tiny bit this time. Die, Sucker!
I am on the path to weed-free living.
Hear me roar.
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