Living out in the boonies, you get the benefit of peace and quiet, with the caveat that it took a lot more upkeep. Our house was a doublewide manufactured home, which tended to fall apart after thirty years. We’re at year twenty-eight according to Zillow, and it sure shows. The white siding was turning yellow and green in places where it got rained on, the underpin with more cracks than bricks at this point, and the back door took the entirety of your strength to shut. And that’s to name a few. You can see the stars at night, something I didn’t have the luxury of when I was living with my parents. The best upside of living here is that I had enough privacy to be able to pee in the backyard without fearing that someone would see me. Not that I’ve ever done that. Yet.
Michael, as with most VTubers, is a homebody. While he has a car, he rarely drives it around. He never comes back home with anything other than liquor, which is for his occasional ‘drunk streams’. Having to do your job drunk sounds like a nightmare, but Michael seems to enjoy it enough to have done it more than once. He spends most of his time talking during these ‘drunk streams’. Functionally they were an unlabeled zatsudan.
With groceries, I was the one that got them. Since I was the person with a job in town, it was only natural. Michael, thankfully, usually hands me his card and tells me something like ‘go wild’. I really should go wild, but usually, the craziest I get is buying a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon for myself. Maybe some Coors Banquet as well. Hell, maybe even Modelo or Red Stripe. The only thing Michael tells me to get, other than things related to his streams, is tea bags–black, green, oolong, chamomile, you name it. He’s a real tea-head. He’s so known for it on-stream that his chat likes to say that he’s “sipping the tea” when he forgets to mute and takes an audible slurp, something that happens often enough to be noted. The joke is a bit contrived to me, but to be fair, he IS sipping tea. Sipping the shit out of it.
As for food, it was divided into three categories: the first sixty percent came from Michael’s DoorDash addiction. One thing about being a VTuber is that it really enables you to never have to step outside of your comfort zone, or outside in general, if you’re financially successful from it. That’s probably true for most work-from-home jobs though, but I digress. He ordered from DoorDash 1.5 times a day if I had to guess–usually ordering like three servings of whatever he felt like at the moment. He never ate more than like half of what he ordered (VTubers don’t really do mukbangs from what I know. I’m glad because that shit is nasty.) The rest was either put in the fridge or offered to me. It’s one of the best perks of moving here. It does make me wonder if he ordered that much before I moved in–considering that I’m the first roommate that he’s had in this house, it worries me about the potential amount of wasted food. The second category, which was food that I made or bought, only comprised about thirty-eight percent of the food in the house. This was the food I brought home and the meals I made myself. I wasn’t that much of a chef–I only learned how to cook spaghetti this year. Michael was abysmal, which had to be a reason why he relied so much on delivery apps. Grilling is relatively easy, but I haven’t had the time to cook on the grill outside yet. I don’t even know if it works. I’m surprised that Michael hasn’t used it for a cooking stream yet. The last two percent, which was the food Michael made (usually for his stream), was cooked on the stove or in the oven. He tried to have a cooking stream at least once a month–having to cook enough to have three or so hours of content, which means there are a lot of leftovers. He wasn’t the worst cook in the world, but his cooking always looked like it was the first time he did it. When he made several different types of eggs, most of the ‘different types’ ended up being scrambled and charred. About half of the pancakes he cooked on Valentine’s Day had no bend to them. You could knock someone out with them. You see, Michael tends to get lost in thought talking to his chat, forgetting about what he’s cooking until it’s too late. Off-stream, I couldn’t imagine it being better. Amazingly he’s never caught anything on fire–something that might change if he ever decides to use the grill.
Michael and I both keep our respective rooms relatively tidy–with Michael preferring to keep it clean due to it also being his workspace. He told me that a few of his genmates are known for never cleaning up after themselves, with one of them being forced to clean their room after ants invaded it. Apparently, they thought that throwing cans of Red Bull under their desk instead of in the trash was okay because, and I quote, “they didn’t have any sugar in them”. I hope she never comes over for an ‘offline collab’. He refused to name her, but I’m sure sleuths can figure it out. Anyways, since our area didn’t have trash collectors that came by, we had to dump it ourselves. Being the one that steps outside more than once a week, I’m the one that takes the weekly trip to the ‘Recycling Center’. It’s not that huge of a deal since there’s more than one on the way to work. It only takes about a minute to drop the trash off–that is, unless there’s a queue of vehicles there when I arrive. Before I started living here, Michael used to leave his trash outside, only going to the dump about once a month. Michael’s concerns about cleanliness and tidiness ended the moment he went out the door.
As I moved here during the New Year, I haven’t had to deal with cutting the grass yet. Our house is situated in the middle of a plot of land that was about the size of a football field. Our house came with a shed, which had a lawn mower in it that was pretty nice all things considered. It was The Landlord’s and was there on the condition that ‘we keep the lawn looking good’. When I was signing the lease, The Landlord told me that I was a ‘lifesaver’ for agreeing to cut the lawn. It wasn’t in writing, but this was a huge concern for her, saying that an unkept lawn was one of her ‘highest’ pet peeves. Michael, who had been living here for the last year, had only cut the lawn once during that timespan. That was only after months of neglect, which culminated in Miss Landlord barging in the front door and demanding Michael do it–only about five minutes before he was going to start his daily stream. Of course, Michael had to postpone his stream and was obliged to cut the grass. According to The Landlord, Michael was ‘clueless’ and ‘almost blew up’ the lawnmower by starting it. I don’t know how you do that, but according to Michael, “it’s very hard to start”. And that wasn’t the only issue. Originally, Michael only cut the front yard, because he thought that it was all that mattered, which drew the ire of Miss Landlord, who wanted EVERYTHING cut. This yard wasn’t that big, but with neglect, it probably took Michael and The Landlord twice as long as it should to cut it all. Tall grass sometimes needs to be run over twice to look good. Needless to say, it was Michael’s introduction to what having a white mother was like. Well, The Landlord was a bit peculiar, but she also had that chip on her shoulder that many women around here have for some reason.
After that fiasco, Michael started having a landscaping company come by and cut the lawn. They charged like a hundred bucks for each cut though, and while Michael had more than enough to afford such a luxury, I didn’t mind being the grass cutter. It’s just like riding a go-kart. Plus, I was used to cutting lawns already, as it was a quick way to gain money from family members when I was a child. The Landlord couldn’t fathom why he would ‘waste his money like that’—as I said, she was peculiar.
With renovations, the Landlord told me to call her. She had a lot of tools in the shed that held the lawn mower, owing to the fact that it was her house at one point. Apparently, she won the lottery a few years ago, and only kept this house because she didn’t want to sell it. Personal sentiment if I had to guess. She didn’t want it to be left unoccupied, so she rented it out. Michael and I were her only tenants at this point, so she didn’t really have a lot on her plate landlord-wise. The only reason why she’s so insistent on doing renovations herself is that she wants to save money, which is hilarious considering she quite literally won the Powerball Jackpot. For those who aren’t familiar, it means she won anywhere from tens of millions of dollars to over a few hundred million dollars. About half of it would be taxed out, but that’s still a lot of fucking money to win. I personally wanted to know how much she won, but it would be rude to ask so up-front.
The Landlord spent most of her time at her house in Hawaii, and only some of it back in this area. Since she doesn’t have to anymore, she spends a lot of her free time doing DIY projects, which is mostly why she’s more than willing to fix problems around the house herself rather than pay a professional. Knowing that not only does she have the money to have professionals fix issues quickly, but Michael does too, is annoying, but I’m not arguing. Especially only paying $600 a month. It might go up if she doesn’t get her way with her little projects!
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I wasn’t expecting to cut the grass sooner than expected, but it had been a relatively warm March so far. And with the torrential rainfall that happened a few days ago, the grass had grown to a cutting size. Well, not in my opinion, but in the Landlords.
During the downpour, the gutter at the far end of the house, adjacent to Michael’s room, bent forward and became warped, dumping water on the ground below. At first, this seemed like it wouldn’t be an issue, but considering that there was going to be a constant dripping noise outside of one of his rooms during and after it rains, I believe that he would want to get it fixed as soon as possible. He would agree as well once he sees it. It must be a bitch to mix that out of your stream.
For issues such as this, there was no need to call a professional and pay to get this repaired. While the gutter was warped, it could be rectified by putting in new screws. This was, I later found out, the third time this had happened. Those gutters were more than likely at the end of their life span–or at least the screws holding them in were. The fix for this was simpler than it seemed. All you need is a ladder tall enough to reach the gutter. Then you needed a drill and a screw to secure the gutter to the house. It was a relatively simple fix if you had the tools, and thankfully Miss Landlord had thousands of dollars worth of them in the shed. There were three ladders in there, the middle one being the one needed to fix the gutter. The drill and screws we needed were in there as well. At least according to her, they were.
Miss Landlord happened to be in town at the time and was going to come by eventually anyway. Me shooting her a message with a photo of the damaged gutter probably moved that visit up a few days. She was coming by tomorrow morning to fix the gutter and anything else that looked wrong in her eye. She never told me a time, but I’m not working nor have plans so I have all day.
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I was awoken by a sharp bang on the door at around 7 AM the next day. I had no idea who the hell would be at our door that early in the morning…
Opening the door, I saw a bright and ready face–
“About time someone came to the door! I was about to walk in since none of y’all wanted to get up!” It was Miss Landlord, who despite not ever having to work another day in her life, was ready to tackle the day at the buttcrack of dawn like it was her livelihood.
With her radiant glow, along with the sun rising behind her piercing my eyes, I woke up suddenly. “Nice to see you Miss Landlord” I replied.
Like I asked her weight, she suddenly soured and said “I already told you, don’t call me ‘Miss’. It makes me feel old. Just call me Jean.” Oh yeah, I forgot since the last time we talked was months ago, but Miss Landlord–I mean Jean, seemed to hate it when people addressed her with honorifics. I guess I’ll call her Jean from now on, just in case she reads this. I’m sorry for forgetting!
While I made myself a cup of coffee, Jean went around the back of the house to look at the twisted gutter.
image [https://i.imgur.com/I8svIK4.png]
Visual of the damaged gutter. Whenever it rains, the water overflows from the gutter and spills on the siding, which is how the algae (the light green) forms.
By time I was done brewing my coffee, she had already opened the door to the shed. She was getting a ladder out, assumingly for the gutter. She wasn’t one for dilly-dallying.
Walking towards her, she told me to ‘grab that box on the counter’ in the shed. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I assumed it was the cardboard box that had three drills and a ton of loose screws in it.
Carrying the box, I placed it on the ground, along with my coffee–Jean was done setting the ladder up, and wanted me to keep it held so it wouldn’t slip from under her. It seemed like an easy enough job.
“Can you hand me the DeWalt and some screws?” I knew that DeWalt used yellow for their color schemes, but I had no idea what kind of screws she wanted. I grabbed a handful of them and gave them to her.
“You didn’t have to hand me so many screws…” she muttered–she was right, but I had no idea what would be the correct screw to ‘fix’ the gutter.
After some fiddling with the drill, Jean got started with drilling ‘new’ screws in. I actually had no idea if they were new, but I wasn’t going to question it. Holding the ladder required nothing more than placing my feet diagonally beside the bottom, ensuring that it would not slide from underneath her. One hand held the ladder while the other was holding my coffee, half drank. It was perfectly stable already, but better safe than sorry.
I got a buzz from my phone–I looked and took a peak at it–it said:
[“do u know what that noise outide is?”]
I guess the noise had woken Michael up. Well, really it was an inevitability. We were on the side of the house he occupied. It did make me wonder if he even helped our landlord when she came. I highly doubt it. I was going to reply when I heard “Goddamn it, work bitch!” screamed from above–Jean was talking to her drill. Rather, giving it the hairdryer treatment.
“Uh…is everything okay?” There wasn’t much I could do down here, but I would rather not have my landlord fighting with a tool. Not before 8 in the morning. It’s never good when someone on a ladder is angry.
Jean sighed, took a deep breath, and said “Yes, everything’s fine…sorry.” I didn’t know if she was apologizing to me or her drill–if anything, DeWalt should be apologizing to her for all the trouble their drill was causing. I didn’t know what the issue was, but it seemed like it solved itself since she was able to start drilling again.
[“landlord is here”] He should know that already since I told him yesterday…he replied with [“oh ok”]. He could at least ask if he could help out. Not that I was expecting him to, but it would be nice. Not sure what purpose it would be for two men to hold one ladder unless we were doing our take on that one Polack joke.
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About five minutes later, we were done fixing the gutter. It wasn’t ‘perfect’, but water would not pour out anymore anytime it rained. I was just glad that it was on Michael’s side of the house and not mine. It would be annoying to have to hear that every time it rains. I can only chalk it up to his laziness as to why Michael hadn’t even complained about it once.
Jean seemed like she wanted to do other things around the house that I didn’t know of, but she gave me the right away to go ahead and mow the lawn.
“Really. Now?”
I was still of the opinion that it was unnecessary to cut the grass right now. While it had rained buckets a few days prior, it wasn’t like the grass was overflowing. In my humble opinion, next week would be a better starting point. The grass would be long enough then.
“Yes. Now.” The Landlord had a stern look that would take no for an answer, but would be disappointed by it. “You don’t have to do it, but if you won’t, I will.” Part of me wanted her to tone it down, but considering she had to deal with Michael’s shenanigans last year, she had reason to be authoritative.
“Well, when you put it that way…” Cutting grass isn’t hard. A child could do it. It was a bit early in the day, but on the flip side, it still was relatively nice outside. The sun had started to warm the crust of the Earth. The remaining dew on the ground was vanishing, making the blades of grass prime to be trimmed. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was the perfect time.
“Give me a few minutes to get ready, then I’ll start cutting.” The day was still young, and it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. The Landlord simply nodded and went back towards the shed.
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My pajamas and work outside clothes were the same–a white T-shirt and athletic shorts. The only thing I needed to put on was a hat and headphones. Also, I needed to grab my water bottle. I had drank my coffee up and needed something that would keep me cool.
The lawn mower in the building wasn’t that old–it wasn’t one of those state-of-the-art zero-turn mowers, but it did not look thirty years old nor was a push mower. While I was inside, Jean had topped off the gas (there was a nearly full 5-gallon gas canister in the shed) and was checking the oil when I came back. After triple-checking it, she let me get the show on the road.
I felt like this was one of my first steps into ‘boomerhood’, mowing the lawn before 9 in the morning. Normally I would wait until the late afternoon to cut, but since I’m already out here there was no reason not to do it. If I waited a few hours, then I would be at the mercy of the Sun. Also, there’s a good chance I would be on Jean’s shitlist if I procrastinated with it. A hundred dollars increase in rent for each hour I didn’t do it I imagine.
The plot of land Michael and I lived on was quite huge for two homebodies. It was almost an acre big–plenty of room to do activities. The land was unused, other than resting the house we lived in. If I had to guess, this land used to be farmland, which meant that other than cows and whatever Jean did with it, it hadn’t been used much. Realistically Michael had ample room to do outdoor streams if he wanted to. He had a month or two before it became too hot to do those. That is, if he had any interest. I don’t think he did.
image [https://i.imgur.com/5IGmoC8.png]
Overview of our residence. The brown areas are areas that I wasn’t going to cut, either because scrubs were in the way, plants were…planted there, or because there was a mailbox in the way. The rex box to the left was where the shed was, and the one on the right was where the cars were parked. Not drawn to scale. Trees in yard not included.
Starting the lawn mower wasn’t that hard thankfully. I always had a fear that I would blow the engine up whenever I did anything that resembled a crank start–thankfully this only took one turn of the keys and one press of the clutch to start.
Cutting grass is mindless work, especially when the grass you are cutting is on a flat piece of land. Besides maneuvering around the mailbox and a few trees, there wasn’t that much difficulty to it. It was quite literally a go-kart with blades on the bottom. While cutting grass seemed boring, the rhythmic pace allowed me to enter a flow state. If nothing went wrong, I would be done before I knew it. Plus, I had my headphones with me.
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Fast forward around 90 minutes later, the grass was finally cut to a proper length. Thankfully since it was still before noon, I didn’t sweat up a storm. I was in a trance to the point where I didn’t even check my phone the whole time. I had a small backlog of Formula 1 news podcasts to listen to. The season had just started, but it already looked like Max Verstappen was going to win another championship. No need to bore you with the details.
When I finally hopped off, I checked my phone instinctively–I was greeted with a few messages:
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
[“is there a way u can turn down the lawnmower”]
[“please”]
[“seriously, its picking up over stream”]
[“BRO”]
I kind of assumed that I would wake Michael up when I was cutting near his side of the house, but I didn’t know that he would be streaming at that time…it must have been one of his twice-a-day stream days. He always included CEST (Central European Standard Time) and JST (Japanese Standard Time) along with EST (Eastern Standard Time) which made it confusing at times to read. Nevertheless, there wasn’t a way to ‘turn down’ the lawn mower without cutting the blades off, so he would have to deal with it. It’s done for now. I wasn’t going to bother with a response.
Right when I was going back to the shed to get ready to put the mower in, Jean came in, grabbed the leaf blower, and went back out. The next thing I know, she was using the blower to blow the clumps of grass off it. It was electric, so she didn’t have to crank it. It was quieter but less powerful. Blowing the lawn mower off made sense considering there was still probably dew on it, making it easier to have blades of grass clump up. What I didn’t expect her to do next, after that, was to walk towards the carport and blow everything off there. Not only the grass blades that ended up on the driveway, but the pollen that was on our cars, and whatever was on the porch. She was really a perfectionist when it came to this stuff. You would think she would hire someone to do this with all of the money she had. It’s what I would do.
If you were wondering what Jean was doing during this time, she was doing an inventory of everything inside the shed and organizing it. Considering that she was the only person that been in there for the last year, it seemed a bit pointless to do, but hey, it’s her stuff.
Everything looked noticeably cleaner than it did when I was in there an hour earlier, so I’m guessing she also took the time to tidy everything up. One can only imagine how much dust can build up in a building that gets opened only a few times a year.
Once Jean came back, I asked her if there was anything else that I needed to do–she responded saying “Not really. Looks like you did a good job cutting the yard…better than Mikey. Say, is he even here? I haven’t heard from him at all.”
I just shrugged and said, “I bet he’s trying to sleep through all of this.” I was lying, but I didn’t know if she got the concept of what he did for a living in the first place.
“Well, I’m probably going to make his life a little more miserable.” she said as she walked towards the mower. She was carrying a tank that looked like it had water in it–I asked her what it was and she said it was Roundup. Guess she was going to use the mower to spray it around.
“While I’m doing the Roundup, if you wanna, go get one of the clippers in the building and cut around the trees that got in your way while cutting the grass.” I know she said ‘wanna’, but I got the sense that she was asking me, in a very passive way, to start doing that. I hated it when I was told to do things in a non-direct way, but at least the task at hand wasn’t that hard. There were many tree branches that I had to dodge while on the mower, it would be better to clip them now rather than later when they grow longer.
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I started with the trees at the edge of the yard. These trees were about thirty feet tall–they looked like tall shrubs from a distance, but they were in fact trees. They already had a shape that suggested that this was a yearly tradition. A tradition that didn’t happen last year unless if it was her or the landscaping company that Michael hired to clip them. They were not hard branches to cut…well, the thin ones weren’t. Those I could technically snap with my bare hands, but it was much faster, and more civilized, to use the trimmers. The thicker branches took a few swipes to cut. Those I did snap with my bare hand if it didn’t look like the trimmers would go through.
Jean sprayed the Roundup around the edge of the yard first, which let me go behind her and do my trimming without fear of being in her way. She was spending more of her time near the house and in the driveway, where there were cracks in the pavement. I didn’t know what to do with the clippings, so I left them where they dropped for the moment. I knew that she would have a plan for them.
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Thirty minutes later, I was finally done cutting the limbs on the perimeter that I saw needed to get cut. Jean was done doing the Roundup, and put the lawn mower up finally. After that, she got out her own battery-powered pole saw and started trimming down the plants next to the house. Honestly, I wished I had that pole saw because my arms were exhausted from holding up a metal trimmer for that long. It was quite a workout–my white T-shirt was now drenched in sweat even though it still wasn’t that hot outside.
I was backtracking where I’ve trimmed to see if I missed any spots. Jean saw me and said “Come here for a second!” I was heading that way regardless.
When I got close enough, I said “What’s up?”
“If you think you’ve done enough cutting, then go ahead and get the wheelbarrow out of the building and put all of the branches in there.” The wheelbarrow she was talking about was lying upright beside the ladders.
Putting away the trimmers, I picked up the wheelbarrow. It was a two-hand operation getting it out of the shed. Not heavy, just wobbly. I went across where I just was and picked up any fallen branch I saw. It took no time for the wheelbarrow to be filled to the brim.
Driving the wheelbarrow, I walked back towards The Landlord and asked her what should I do with the limbs. She responded, “Find an area back there,” pointing around where the middle of the backyard was, “and dump them there. Try to keep it away from the trees.”
“Okay” was all I had to say. For someone who described herself as a ‘clean freak’ when I was touring the place, she didn’t seem to mind getting the yard all cluttered. It took a few trips back and forth, but I eventually got all the limbs I’ve cut down up—it would’ve been nice to have the wheelbarrow to begin with.
Once I was done dumping them, I trundled back with the wheelbarrow, asking “What’re we gonna do with these limbs? Burn them?”
“Eventually.” She said.
“Eventually?” What else did she want to do? And did we even have anything to burn them with? Considering it rained and that I had just cut these things, it wasn’t as simple as lighting them on fire with a match. Some fuel would be needed to start and keep it going.
“Well, I mean, unless if you wanna go ahead and start it,” she stated as she threw some shrub clippings into the wheelbarrow, “I have pine needles coming any time now, so I don’t want to start the fire until I’m done spreading it around. That is, unless you wanna start it yourself.”
To be quite honest, I had no idea what ‘pine needles’ were–if I had to guess, she was having some kind of mulch delivered to spread where the plants were. To confirm this, I asked “Are pine needles what is around the house?”
“Yes,” She stated matter-of-factly “…but I wasn’t able to get around to doing it last year. So now it looks like this…” I didn’t know that the pine needles laid beside the house were ‘old’. Personally, I thought that it looked fine already, but I wasn’t going to argue. If she said we needed more, we needed more. It was her property anyway.
Thinking of a way to help her without doing that much help, I said “I can help you with the pine needles—I can start the fire while we’re waiting for them to be delivered.”
Spreading pine needles couldn’t take that much time. Right? We’ll see when they arrive.
“Well, if you’re going to go ahead and get the fire started,” she pointed at the water hose connected to the house, “you should spray the edges with water so it doesn’t spread.”
“Alright, sounds simple enough.” I walked towards the hose attached to the side of the house and unraveled it. It was on the side of the house that was Michael’s. His bedroom and one of his spare rooms were adjacent to the driveway. Unlike the lawn mower, he couldn’t hear me unrolling the hose.
This would be the first time I would be using it—thankfully it had a head already on it so I wouldn’t have to go searching for one in the shed.
Walking towards the debris pile with the hose, I turned it on…at least, I thought I did. There wasn’t any water coming out. Not even a drip.
“Uhh….” I was lost. I turned around and asked “did I do this right?”
Jean, too far away to hear what I said, seemed to already know that something was wrong. She was where the hose was stored and turned the valve below it heavily to the left. “Is it working?” she yelled out.
“No!” I yelled back, fidgeting with the hose head, I looked at it head-on. Damn it, don’t break on me. Right as I finished my thought, water started coming out–spraying right on my face. A moneyshot. Very cliche…I can’t believe I walked into that.
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After my embarrassing self-headshot, I regrouped and watered all around the debris pile. I understood the motive behind this–this fire was probably going to go on for a while, and she wasn’t going to be here all day…at least I hoped. I wasn’t planning on being outside all day either, so spraying around where the fire would be would be the best measure against having it spread without having to accompany it at all times.
I left the hose on the ground somewhat near the debris pile just in case it was needed. The Landlord was still chipping away. She had taken the wheelbarrow from me–she was a bit more liberal with what she cut, shaping plants and shrubs to where there was no possibility of them being in the way. Not that they were in the first place, but she absolutely gave them a haircut. Scalped some.
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Before I could get any further with preparing the debris pile, the pine needles Jean ordered were delivered. She ordered what seemed like twenty bales of them—she had them laid down in the shade. They weren’t hard to carry—the hard part was cutting them open. The box cutters we had were quite dull—they required more than a few swipes to fully unravel.
Spreading pine needles was easy, menial work. It took only a few bales to cover the back part of the garden and any trees in the middle of the backyard. Jean was doing the lion’s share of the spreading. Jean even handed me gloves to make the task easier. Where were these when I was trimming the trees?
There were only three areas I needed to cover—beside the house, and around the perimeter of two trees in the backyard. Spreading around the house was somewhat slow at first, since it was the first time I’ve ever done it. However, by the time I got the second bale I got the hang of it
The only hard part was avoiding spiders—I wasn’t that scared of them, but I would rather not get bitten by one. And you know how annoying being caught in a web was. It only took like thirty minutes to lay the pine needles down. My shirt was already soaked, so it wasn’t like I was overheating. My water bottle, around 40 ounces, was still half full. Interestingly enough I haven’t had to go to the restroom yet. Guess the pee water had to be converted to sweat water.
It was bright out by now. High noon. The temperature was around 75 degrees. The wind had picked up, which gave me chills when the gust came. I was done with my part and wanted to get the fire started. I do admit that a part of me wanted to start it just for the hell of it. Another part wanted to start a fire so I would have a line of defense from the wind.
Jean went ahead and placed everything I needed to start it together outside of the shed. Two bottles of lighter fluid, multiple folded pieces of cardboard, a Bic lighter, and a camping chair was all that was needed. The only thing I needed to do before starting it was to call the ‘forestry commission’ to put in a notice. According to Jean, we could get in ‘major trouble’ if we don’t. She didn’t have a number to call, however.
After a minute of googling, I dialed the 800 number, after a second of silence, a recording of a man stated the following:
[“This is the forestry commission line for general debris burning notification in Pickens County. General debris burning includes all outdoor burning, except fires for forestry, wildlife, and agriculture. If you want to report a fire emergency, or if your burn is specifically for forestry, wildlife, or agriculture, please hang up and dial 1-800-777-FIRE. That’s 1-800-777-3473. Only vegetative debris can be burned unless if you obtain prior approval from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. You must also comply with other state air quality regulations, as well as all county or local outdoor burning ordinances. To make your general debris burning notification, press 1 now. If you’re calling from a rotary phone, please st-.”]
I pressed 1–the recording continued:
[“This notification is valid for today only. It is not valid inside corporate limits of any town or city. Fire danger today is MODERATE, outdoor burning should be conducted with caution. If you’re going to burn, the state precaution law requires you make this notification. It also requires that you have an adequate firebreak around the burning site, adequate means of keeping the fire under control, and that you stay with the fire until it is completely safe. To complete your notification, please give your name, telephone number, and location of the burn at the sound of the to-.”]
I get why the state has to do this, but oh by god this recording was taking forever. After I gave them the information needed, I hung up and went up to Jean in the front yard to tell her that I called the line and was going to start the fire.
“Alright, if you need any help just holler.” She was being particular with the pine needles, fluffing them as if they were a pillow. It made me think that I should probably do the same, but if it was really that needed she would tell me.
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I was done for the day…well, it was barely past noon, but I was done with all the yard work. I’ve cut the grass, trimmed the trees, spread out pine needles, and now was manning a fire. It wasn’t a huge fire, but it still was large enough to require an eye on it.
The Landlord was off doing something. I wasn’t going to bother finding out, since all that would happen is that I’d get roped into helping her.
I’d been on my phone for some time now—I haven’t had time to waste for a few hours now. Might as well check up on social media!
It was the same old story. Nothing that exciting. My account, which had zero real followers and followed way too many people, had a great variety of what could be served. A good chunk of my follower list was of news outlets. Not just the CNNs and the ABCs, but also the SCMPs, the Al Jazeeras—hell, even the RTs! Although I hate the news for what it stands for, I can’t stop consuming it! I need to know what’s going on around the world! New management of Twitter may want to make it unusable for news, but I have a good enough bullshit meter to not be affected by it.
The only VTuber-related accounts I followed were of Michael and his cohorts. There were anime news outlets I followed that occasionally posted VTuber-related news, but that was usually of Japanese VTubers. VTubers from NijiLive, a direct competitor to Michael’s employer AnyClover, had also been featured. NijiLive had an edge in the English VTuber market over AnyClover. They were in the market a year earlier than NijiLive, giving them a good headstart. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but it does seem like 2020 was a better year to start your English push than 2021. Not even including the obvious reason, it should’ve been more known that English-speaking VTubers would be as much of a hit as Japnese-speaking ones. I digress.
Looking at Michael’s Twitter page, it seems that he put out that was streaming this morning…damn, I thought I was more on top of these things! Well, it seemed like it was a ‘guerilla stream’, meaning that he decided to stream minutes before he went live. Not like it would’ve changed anything if we’re being honest.
“That fire’s looking good.” Jean had scared me. I didn’t hear her coming over my own thoughts.
“Yep.” Trying to maintain the illusion that she didn’t startle me, I went along with her.
“He really isn’t gonna come out and help, huh?” The Landlord was looking at Michael’s window.
“Yeah, I highly doubt it.” He was never in a million years going to help. It would have to be at gunpoint.
“Yep. That boy is no help at all.”
“Well, at least I’m here.”
“Thank God for that.”
“And we got all that done in only a few hours.”
“Oh,” The Landlord chucked “I’m not done in the slightest. There’s plenty of projects that I need to do around the house.”
“Really?” I mean, I’ve already done four things today. Technically five if you count steadying a ladder as hard work. In all honesty, I didn’t want to do anything else.
“There’s tons of things. I’m always thinking of things to do around the house. My other houses are new and don’t have anything to fix yet. For instance–that gutter we fixed? There’s probably several other places that have screws that are damn near rotten. If I had the time I would like to inspect them all, but that would take all day and I hate being on the ladder.” That didn’t stop you from getting into a fight with a power tool however… “Also, at that point I might as well get new gutters. And then there’s the siding. I need to just go ahead and get new siding, but I haven’t pulled the plug yet. The more pressing matter is that the siding needs to be cleaned. Just looking at that green stuff on the side makes me feel dirty. Yuck!”
The Landlord went on for several minutes explaining also what was wrong with the house. The underpin needed to be repaired. We needed a new roof. The carport needed to be repainted. And she ‘can bet’ that we weren’t keeping the house clean enough. Other than the underpin, I never thought about the other things. Too much to keep up with for me. Not for Jean, however.
“So…what are you planning to do next?”
“There’s a pressure washer in the shed that hasn’t worked in a while. I watched a YouTube video yesterday on how to fix what I think is wrong with it, so I’ll be doing that for a while. If I can get it fixed, I’m gonna get that green shit off the siding. It’s giving me the creeps!”
Fine with me as long as she didn’t rope me into it. For me, it was phone time until the fire had died down enough for me to abandon it.
“Oh, and I’m gonna spray insect killer around the house as well.”
“Didn’t you already spray?”
“That was for weeds. This is for insects.”
God damn, this woman’s brain was running at a million miles per hour. I’d call what she’s doing ‘defying gender norms’ while she’d probably describe it as ‘getting shit done’. Either way, she was going to do what she wanted, no matter what stood in her way.
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It was only noon, but I was already done streaming. I had started my daily stream early. Early for my timezone at least. 6 AM on the East Coast, where I reside now. It was at 8 PM in Japan and noon in Central Europe, which was who I was mostly streaming for. It was 3 AM on the West Coast, where I lived until two years ago. I had never had a normal sleep schedule, so being up at this time wasn’t new. Insomnia is a pain in the ass…
I had originally planned to guerilla steam American Truck Simulator the whole time. After talking to my chat for a few minutes, I started on a journey from Los Angeles to Seattle–John might call the East Coast the ‘Beast Coast’, but it isn’t anything compared to the Best Coast. I really do miss it. It’s where I was born and raised, so how could I not? The weather was better there than here, and I was actually able to walk to places back home. Not that I actually walked anywhere…not after I discovered DoorDash. I’m not sponsored by them, but I wish I was! Anyone who uses delivery apps knows how expensive it can get, especially if you live far away from civilization like I do now! The only thing that this area had over home was that there was peace and quiet…at least most of the time.
Around an hour into my stream, a loud, repeating banging noise unsettled me. It sounded like someone was trying to break in! What the hell? Who the hell tries to break into a house at 7 in the morning? The weirder part is that the banging noise wasn’t coming from the doors. It was coming from the room adjacent to me. I knew John was home, so I decided to see if he knew what was happening.
[“do u know what is that noise outide?”]
It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I saw that I misspelled ‘outside’, but honestly I was too spooked to care. I had muted for the time being. The banging noise was intermediate, with sometimes a somewhat quieter swirling noise going on in between bangs. It was outside my window of the room next to where I stream.
It had been a few minutes. Robbery be damned, I needed to resume my stream. My truck had crashed into a tree, so I had to get it repaired as soon as possible. Right as I was about to unmute, I heard a sudden yell from outside. It was muffled, but I could hear the word ‘bitch’. It sounded like my landlord, Jean. The incoming Discord message from John confirmed it. A few minutes later, the banging stopped. Wonder if it was related to the dripping noise I heard outside my room yesterday?
Come to think, he did tell me yesterday that she was coming by today. I never thought that ‘today’ would be this early, but from my prior experiences with her, it wasn’t that surprising. When she tried to get me to cut the grass last year, she arrived at the same time. She was hella pushy, acting like I was her son or something. More pushy than my own parents…something I thought I’d never say. I cut the grass, but that was the only time. I had some company come out and cut it for me, since I had better things to do. I didn’t even go out there often and she didn’t even live here anymore, so why did she care?
That was only the start of the trouble. After that, I heard the lawn mower start. She must have gotten him to cut the grass…damn it, couldn’t she wait a few hours? While that didn’t scare the shit out of me like the banging, it was way more annoying. The worst part was that it would pick up over the stream.
I originally sent a few messages to John begging him to turn it down, since it was so rudely interrupting my stream, but after a while, I decided to switch to Lawn Mowing Simulator. He wasn’t going to pick up. I was surprised that I still had this game on my computer, seeing that I hadn’t played it in over a year. I finally had a reason to play it again…at least until the cutting stopped an hour later.
After that, most of the outside noise stopped. There was still a lot of noise outside, but nothing that would bleed over onto the stream. The saving grace to all of this was that those in chat seemed to find my annoyance hilarious. If it entertained them, then it was worth it in the end. Just barely.
I ended my stream at around 11:30 AM. Over five hours of streaming…quite a lot. Since I wasn’t streaming again until tomorrow afternoon, I didn’t mind going long.
After making a cup of green tea, I was chilling out and watching some of my genmates stream. I hadn’t heard from John or The Landlord for hours at this point…curious, I went to the room adjacent to me and looked out the window to the backyard…what I saw was too good not to post on Twitter.
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image [https://i.imgur.com/i4OPMb7.png]