420 Summit

Mo' money

We live in one of those Bedford style post-war developments; rows and rows of upgraded and remodeled bungalows, filled with creepy suburbanites lined up in neat hedgerows on oak and maple guarded streets. You hardly know whether to mow the lawn or the neighbor.

Nisky has a very strict policy on trees. They go as far as to claim ownership of any tree within fifteen feet of the curb. This rule, while somewhat dubious legally, prevents the wholesale slaughter of oaks and maples that are more than a hundred years old. We like it, for the most part.

These trees, aside from looking wicked cool, provide employment for those rare kids willing to get out of bed before noon.

So far this weekend, and we’re only two-thirds through it, their combined leaf raking income is in excess of three hundred dollars. These kids are going to town and billing their time at around forty bucks an hour.

Forty bucks an hour. That’s more than I bill.

They could pay the electric bill or get those insanely expensive jeans they nag about. Or, God forbid, pay for some gas, if they were so inclined. They’re not. If I have taught my children anything, it’s that money is made to be spent. Chores, hygeine, the Golden Rule… they passed right over all that business, but they got the lifestyle thing instantly.

I find myself wondering how receptive the neighbors would be to a grown man with a rake.