Yard Maintenance

Donnie's my yard maintenance guy. He trims trees and bushes, mows, waters, and fertilizes the lawn, does the pest control, and even feeds the dog. All that for just a hundred bucks a month. Of course, when I say he does those things, ...

The first time, he moseyed around and took a good look at everything. "Everything's fine," he said. "Yep." Then he left. After that he presented a bill for $150.

"I thought you said a hundred," I caviled.

"Yeah, I did," he admitted, "but costs just keep going up. I can't do it for a hundred anymore. But tell you what: just drop the dog, and I can make it $130."

That sounded reasonable. Taking care of the dog isn't really lawn maintenance, anyway. So we did that.

The next month, Donnie did another walkabout and handed me a bill for $200.

"It was $130 last month," I protested.

"I know," he said, "and I'm really sorry. It's the cost of living, y'see. But if we leave out the trees, I can cut it to $175."

Trees aren't a big issue with me, so no tree trimming. Done and done.

The next month, Donnie didn't even do his walkabout, but he did give me a bill for $325.

"I'm sorry about this," he apologized. "Soaring costs, you know. If you want to drop the bushes and the pest control, I could see my way clear to dropping that to $300."

Fair enough. The basics of lawn maintenance were still covered.

The next month, Donnie's bill was $450. He cried real tears and offered to cut me a break to $390, if I could forgo the fertilizing. Well, that wasn't really necessary, so I agreed to that for the sake of cost control.

So now, I'm looking at Donnie's bill for $600 and his offer to cut that to $500, simply for dropping the mowing and watering. And that seems more than fair to me, considering that he's never done any of it anyway. The bill came in the mail. Donnie never shows up in person anymore. And that seems fair, too. I feel better, just knowing that I'm paying someone more and more for less and less. In fact, now that Donnie's duties are down to nothing, I can't wait to see how much more he'll charge me next month, or what kind of discount he'll offer if I agree to ... what? Maybe mow his lawn. It feels like ... you know ... insurance.