Nickels Can Add Up April 27, 2008

Spring has sprung.  Well, we kind of skipped Spring and went straight to Summer here.  It’s been 70-80 degrees the past couple weeks, with hardly any rain.  It’s very strange, considering we usually don’t go 3 or 4 days without rain.  But whatever.  It’s now warm enough to open the moon roof in my car, Benny has started shedding off his winter coat, and the dandelions are in full bloom.

Ah, yes, the little yellow weeds that send many people running for chemicals to wage an all-out war against a small, but resilient flower.   My entire neighborhood  is  filled with people who hate  dandelions.  The little yellow signs that warn you of chemicals are all over the place.  Except my yard, of course.  My family does not feel the need to spread hazardous chemicals throughout the already hurt environment.  But that’s a rant for another  post.

The dandelions reminded me of a very profitable venture I participated in when I was much younger.  I must have been only 10 or 11.  My dad wanted to get rid of the dandelions, but not use any chemicals.  So he had the brilliant idea of paying my siblings and I to pick them all out of the yard.  For a nickel each.  I’m sure he thought this was a great idea to rid the yard of yellow weeds without having to do it himself or pay much money for it to be done.  However, nickels can add up.  Either he vastly miscalculated the number of dandelions in our yard, or he underestimated how much time 4 kids could spend picking weeds out of a yard for money.

By the time I finished picking the dandelions, I had picked enough to earn me somewhere between $30 and $40.  A nice profit for a 10 year old.  My bro made about the same, or a little more.  One of my sisters made around $20 or $30, and my other sister who was only about 3 at the time made $10 or so.  Needless to say, he never asked us to pick the dandelions again, even when we offered to lower the cost of each dandelion to only a penny.

A week later, our yard was once again filled with the little yellow weeds that we have surrendered to.  Never again has anyone in my family tried to get rid of the dandelions.  They are just starting to bloom now and soon our yard will be the only yellow covered one, in a sea of perfectly groomed and manicured suburban lawns.