Ultimate (Hedge) Fighting Challenge

In case anyone was thinking about calling me today to ask my opinion about yard work, I'll save you the time and the cell phone minutes: I officially hate it. Now you know.

It's a slow week in the magazine business--actually, it's a slow year in the magazine business but that's an entirely different discussion--so I decided to use a beautiful Friday in Atlanta (no rain, it's a miracle!) to take time off and get some much needed yard work done. My delusional self actually thought it'd be great to get outside in the not-yet-too-hot-sun and exercise some muscle, work on my tan and breathe in some fresh air while I trimmed down the most unruly row of hedges you ever set eyes on.

My house sits in a cul-de-sac so our backyard is a little funky shaped. It starts wide at my house and goes back to a smaller back fence. So I have this one side of fence that goes diagonally all the way down my yard. And some genius (not me) decided to make that diagonal fence less unsightly by planting a row of small-at-the-time shrubs. Fast forward 14 years: that small row of shrubs has blended together and grown up so massively into a solid row of hedges, it's as daunting as the Great Wall of China and in line to be the next Wonder of the World. It actually looks pretty attractive when manicured but like a monstrosity straight out of a horror flick when it's not. It was desperately overdue for a manicure. And the issue here is that it takes several months to reach this state and that's just enough time to dull my memory of the nightmare it is to trim them down.

I got outside first thing this morning and began my purposeful stroll toward the far end of the hedge row. I think I heard the theme song from Rocky playing faintly in the background, but that might've just been in my head. I was equipped with my chosen weapon in hand: an electric, extendable trimmer that weighs an unGodly amount of poundage for an item whose center of gravity is going to be 3 horizontal feet directly out in front of me. But rather than shrink back in fear like any self-respecting perennial should, it practically shot up higher and denser before my eyes. The beast. Like the competitor I am, I didn't back down from this--my own personal ultimate (hedge) fighting challenge.

It took six hours of butchering, cussing and cutting that culminated in my bellowing "WHYYYYY does this have to be so harrrrrrd?!" at the top of my lungs, drawing a few covert looks from neighbors, but alas I had gotten all 100+ feet of that hedge row down to an even 5 feet tall. My arms and stomach looked like I'd lost a fight with an angry cat and I couldn't lift my spaghetti arms enough to even turn the back doorknob but ultimately I'd triumphed over the Hedge That Couldn't Be Tamed.