Defending the middle class: A sod story
NOW that my midlife crisis is mostly over -- anybody wanna buy a little convertible? -- it’s time to move on to more substantive issues. Like those raccoons that keep tearing up my backyard. Little Visigoths in full fur.
The sod cost me 400 bucks, not a grand sum, unless you work for a living and haven’t had a real raise in three or four years, which is pretty much everybody these days.
As I’ve noted in the past, the middle class is mostly gone, a historical footnote, much like the WPA or the British Empire. When they do the final timeline for America, it will start with a tiny middle class, which will swell through the centuries, reaching its zenith perhaps in the 1950s, at which time the middle class will begin to contract before zeroing out in about 2006. Are the presidential candidates tone deaf to this or what? It’s the middle class, stupid.
Anyway, I spent $400 on the sod, laying it by hand in one weekend over some top soil that cost $100. For $500, I finally had my little Fenway, a beautiful stretch of grass about the size of a small swimming pool. A nice place to pitch a tent. When I mowed, it smelled like Ireland in April.
Then one day, we awoke to find about a quarter of the yard rolled back. “Raccoons,” the nice lady at the nursery explained. “They roll it up to look for grubs.”
“What are we gonna do?” asks my wife.
“They were here first, Dad,” scolds the lovely and patient older daughter.
“Fish were here first,” notes the boy.
“I like fish,” says the little guy.
I don’t really care who was here first. I am here now. I pay the mortgage. I want my mini-Fenway.
So each morning, I go back in the yard and roll the sod back into place, which isn’t difficult really. Takes 10 minutes, half of which I spend with my hands on my hips, wondering where the little hooligans live.
“You should go roll up their sod,” the boy says.
“Good idea,” I say.
“Raccoons have sod?” asks the little girl.
Desperate, I go to the hardware store, where I buy a motion-activated sprinkler that is supposed to repel deer and other wildlife. Eighty bucks. Yes, 80. Next morning, more sod mayhem.
Next, I take several of the spotlights from our new landscape lighting and aim them directly over the lawn where the little rascals like to nosh.
“Good thinking,” my friend Paul says. “Because nobody likes to eat in the dark.”
“Maybe you could set out some wine,” the older daughter suggests.
“Maybe you ... “ and I just stop there.
Anyway, the next few nights are pretty quiet, till my bride, during one of her 4 a.m. pit stops -- small woman, tiny bladder -- spots something stirring in the yard.
“Psssst ... I think he’s out there,” she says.
“Huh?”
Sure enough, at the end of the yard is the most beautiful masked felon you’ve ever seen, summer coat still thick and full in the June moonlight. Evidently, he’s been eating well, a diet full of protein and garbage-can fruit. Seriously, he glows like Halle Berry.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” my wife says.
At which point, I fly bravely out the back door in only my underwear, grab a garden rake and start swinging and yelling “Ha! Ha! Ha!” in the direction of the raccoon, which is still a good 30 yards away and calmly finishing some tasty morsel, what’s the hurry.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” I scream again.
Now, in the raccoon world, this is what qualifies as dinner theater, sort of a Medieval Times supper club where not only do they feed you but brave men with weapons also stage mock battles for your entertainment. In the spotlights, I can see the glee in the raccoon’s eyes.
“So this is what’s become of the middle class,” he thinks, “flailing in the dark at their demons.”
I take a few more swipes, before remembering the motion-activated sprinkler to my right. In the middle of a backswing, I freeze. Oops. One more step and that $80 sprinkler will fully deploy -- with my wife watching from the window. The laughter would wake most of California.
Anyway, I tiptoe back to turn off the sprinkler, then grab my rake again and turn back toward the raccoon, which had to be 175 pounds, easy. Maybe 225. I think he was juiced.
I spot him in the distance waddling down the hillside with a belly full of dinner, probably smoking a cigar and vowing to tell his cohorts back in their den/nest/condo about the odd entertainer he’s discovered, the funny guy who gardens in his whitie-tighties.
“He runs a nice dinner theater,” the raccoon will explain.
“Is the food any good?” they’ll ask.
“Sure,” he’ll say. “I’m going back tonight.”
Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com. For more columns, see latimes.com /erskine.
