Junk Faeries

One of the more interesting – or at least less uninteresting – phenomena that you find when living in California’s High Desert is that of “junk faeries.” It is well known by residents that you can put just about anything on the curb* outside of your house and within 24 hours it will have disappeared. This has nothing to do with the quality of the items set out, it could be just about anything. In the past, my offerings to the junk faeries have included such things as a broken nightstand, an old rusted washing machine, a bicycle with bent wheels, and a couch that my dog had ripped to shreds. All of these things and more have, without fail, been accepted as worthy sacrifices. No one knows where the faeries take these items, but I imagine it’s the same place socks disappear to when you put them in the dryer.

Somewhere along the line, however, I must have angered the junk faeries, as they no longer seem to be accepting my offerings. Which means, there has been a perfectly good mattress sitting in front of my house for the past three weeks! So, if any junk faeries happen to be reading this, I’m sorry for whatever it is that I did to piss you off. Please, please, please come and take this mattress away. It’s really a good mattress, only slightly weather-worn (owing to the fact that it has been outside for three weeks), and hardly lumpy at all. I really don’t want to put it up on craigslist, and I’m really tired of looking at it. Thank you.

*In the High Desert the word curb is synonymous with the word dirt.

Little Abuses of Power

One of the more interesting things you learn when you live in the desert is that bits of it tend to spontaneously combust for no readily apparent reason. The Forestry Department would have us believe that wildfires in the desert are mostly caused by people carelessly tossing cigarettes out of car windows or not keeping a good eye on their camp fires. Crazed arsonists are also frequently blamed. And while all of that may be true, I think a more logical explanation for the frequency of wildfires is that it’s just too damn hot. I imagine little bits of dry brush sitting in the heat all day, straining to keep from exploding into flame and then suddenly saying, “Ah, hellwithit!”

As I drove home Friday afternoon, I came upon a fire. Well, it wasn’t much of a fire by the time I got there. Emergency crews had been working on it for some time, and what was left was just smoldering dirt and Joshua trees. It looked like a couple hundred acres of desert had burned. This sounds worse than it is. Like I’ve said before, I live in dirt. When you live in dirt, any contrast in the scenery is a welcome change. But I digress.

Our community employs a Citizen Patrol to supplement its meager police force. When you’re in the Citizen Patrol you get to wear a spiffy semi-official-looking uniform and drive around in an official Citizen Patrol vehicle (complete with flashy police car-like lights on the roof). You don’t get to arrest anyone or carry a gun, but if you spot crimes being committed you get to report them. You’re also on-call for parades and other community events and, as I found out on Friday, you get to direct traffic if there’s a brush fire near a major road.

As I approached the scene of the fire, I could see crews out spraying down the smoldering desert, and several emergency vehicles were parked alongside the road. The car in front of me slowed way down, and I followed suit. Up ahead I could see the official Citizen Patrol truck parked cock-eyed in the middle of the street with its lights flashing. Two people in Citizen Patrol uniforms were directing traffic around the truck, and as I approached, one of them admonished me to “slow down!” That threw me for a loop, and my gaze immediately dropped down to my speedometer. I was only going 5 mph. Any slower and I would have been going in reverse!

The Citizen Patrol is mostly made up of older, retired folks. So, it’s a lot like being a Wal-Mart door guard in more ways than one. One afternoon we were leaving Wal-Mart (I guess I go there more often than I would like to admit) when a door guard stepped in front of us and demanded to see our receipt. We politely refused. We were in a hurry to make it to an appointment, and resented being treated like criminals. The door guard got a nasty look on her face and repeated her demand. Said receipt had already disappeared into my wife’s purse, and would probably take a week to find again, so we said (a little less politely this time), “What will you do if we just walk out of here.” Obviously stumped, the door guard’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head while she considered how to respond. Before she could do anything, we skirted around her and proceeded out into the parking lot. There was no hue and cry behind us, and we made it to our car unmolested.

I guess it just goes to show you what happens when you put people in uniform and give them a little bit of power… They feel obligated to
wield it.

I, Dirt

I live in dirt. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true. If you’ve ever been to the Mojave Desert, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Most of the Mojave is made up of dirt. And it’s not fun dirt, either. It’s dry and hard and nothing grows in it except for weeds and Joshua trees. I wash my car, and two days later it looks like it’s never been cleaned. I had to dump a ton of soil in our yard just to grow some grass. You get the picture.

I also live in wind. The winds in the High Desert of California are legendary. You’d think that having a nice breeze blowing through would be a good thing, cool things down and such, but it’s not. The wind is hard and unsteady, stopping intermittently only to start again and blow all that much harder. You can almost hear the wind god turn his head, inhale and then turn back to exhale with a loud “SSshhhhhhshhhhhheeeeeeeeeewwwwww.” Then he turns his head and starts the whole process all over again. I tried flying a kite in this wind once. The kite sailed up into the air. Then the wind died and it started to plummet. Then the wind started up again, and instead of sending the kite back up into the air, it grabbed it and threw it to the ground. I could almost see the face of the wind god laughing maniacally. I know I heard him as I picked up the broken pieces of $3.99 Kmart Special. The gods only think they have a sense of humor.

When wind and dirt get together, it’s not pretty. I was sitting in my living room one Saturday afternoon and heard a loud BOOM and sort of a whooshing noise. I looked out the front window to see that a dust devil the size of the Chrysler Building had just attacked our house and was moving onto my neighbor’s. I went outside and found that the swing set had been upended and my entire house was covered in a thick layer of dirt, along with miscellaneous bits of trash. That was fun to clean up.

I mention all of this simply because I wanted to give some context for this story. This week my wife landed a job teaching kindergarten at a local elementary school. She’s very excited, but also a bit stressed because the school year starts on Monday and she needs to get her classroom ready quickly. Yesterday she brought two metal bookshelves home from her classroom that she intended to spray paint in bright red and blue colors. Because her time is limited, she wanted to get it done right away. However, it was very windy outside, and I told her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to spray paint outside. I was worried that the paint would blow all over her, all over the yard, all over the house, etc. I was also worried that dirt might get blown all over the wet paint. I suggested that she put down some newspaper and paint them in the garage. She didn’t think it was such a great idea, but was willing to defer to my obviously expert opinion on the matter.

Half an hour later I was in the bedroom reading when I felt that strange burning sensation I get when I’m being glared at angrily. I looked up from my book to find my wife boring a hole in my forehead using nothing but her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Snookums?” I don’t know why I resort to pet names when I know I’m in trouble. It’s never had the intended effect.

“You… told… me… to… paint… in… the… garage…” Her voice was cold, but obviously restrained. I could tell I was on shaky ground.

“Um. What happened?” I asked with as much innocence in my voice as I could possibly muster.

“Follow me!”

Obediently I got up and followed her into the garage. A red haze hung in the air. Not only that, but everything in the garage now had a red tint to it – the areas of floor not covered by newspaper, the kids’ bikes, some laundry piled up by the washing machine, a few boxes, everything.

“Um. Sorry?” I ventured.

I won’t elaborate on what followed, I’m trying to put it behind me. Suffice to say that I now not only live in dirt, I also feel like dirt… At least I’m in my native element.