Autumnal Tail

Overnight, the leaves on my towering redbud tree turned. And, in what seemed only 48 hours, my yard was paved with gold – about a foot deep.

Ah well. It had to be dealt with. I got out the blower and the rake and the giant plastic yard waste container.

It’s always fun in the beginning: swooshing up great piles, feeling the autumn sun on your shoulders. The pleasure begins to dim after an hour or so, when mountains of leaves seem infinite. I scooped great swaths of leaves into the container but mounds remained. Over and over I raked and scooped and raked some more, but seemed to make only infinitesimal progress. The giant yard waste container was getting full. Acres of leaves remained, uncontained.

Pressing the leaves down in the container with shovels and other implements created only a little more space. Then I remembered how in past years, standing in the container had made a significant impact. I got the stepstool from the pantry and proceeded, determined.

In one crazed moment, a thought flashed through my addled brain and I acted on it without the slightest consideration. “If standing in the container helps, wouldn’t sitting help even more?”

Ah foolish woman! I climbed. I sat. I sank.

I thought as I sank, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I couldn’t get out?”

Instantly, I realized that it wasn’t funny at all. I was indeed compressing the leaves but when I tried to get out, I only sank deeper, bottom first, ending (so to speak) in a fetal position. My bulk was now nearly three feet below the rim of the container, my legs curving at odd angles and nothing but the edges of the container to hang on to. Thank god I was in the back yard and out of the line of vision of all but the chattering squirrels and my cat, watching from the dining room window.

It took a very long time and, frankly, I don’t know how I managed it but at last I became semi-upright and managed to hook one leg, then the other, over the container’s edge and haul myself up and out without tipping over.

Don’t try this at home … or anywhere else.

Nothing was hurt but my dignity. I raked and scooped more leaves. I have lived to tell the tale. And to rake again tomorrow.