Leaf me alone!

Yesterday I was in my front yard with my lawn mower. The grass hasn't grown a millimeter in weeks, but the lawn is covered in leaves. I made a couple of circuits with the mower, picking up the leaves as I went, when a man who was walking on the sidewalk stopped.

I saw he wanted to talk to me so I stopped the mower.

"Are you cutting your lawn? What are you doing, getting an early start on next year?"

I looked at him. He was a man roughly my age. I didn't know him. "No," I said. "I'm picking up leaves with the mower." I went to turn it on when I saw he was making arm motions. He was pantomiming a raking motion. "This is what you should be doing," he said.

"I'll rake if I have to, but as a last resort."

"No," he said firmly. "You always rake as a first resort." He started to walk away. "I mean it."

Well, pardon the hell outta me! I'm sorry that using my lawnmower to pick up leaves offends you, or that it isn't in line with your way of thinking. What are you doing walking past my house in the middle of the day, anyway? Are you out catching people not using the proper methods of getting leaves off the ground?

Sheesh. I continued on with my mowing, and when I was done and had picked up all the leaves I could with the mower, I took out the rake and used that to get the stragglers. I looked up and down the street to see if he was in the vicinity. Damn Nosey Parker. I'll show him!