Hosers Know Best
Gentlemen, start your engines. Or to be more precise, grab your nozzles. The tournament of hoses has officially begun.
The rules are the same each year. Participants (you know who you are) compete each season to see who can be the first to use up roughly the entire summer’s water supply in a hosing event.
Competitors can vie for glory in any or all of the following categories: 1. Hand-hosing grass clippings, pine needles, leaf remnants and any available small livestock from the yard to the curb and then on, in a floody flurry, to the finish line. Extra points are awarded for clogging the storm drain.
2. Hand-hosing dead parts of the lawn burned by too vigorous an application of weed killer. Extra points are awarded for watering in the very hottest part of the day.
3. Hand-hosing windows, doors or any other exterior surface of the house where water spots are especially visually appealing. Extra points are awarded for removing the first layer of paint while in the “sharp stream” mode.
4. Attaching a hose to any kind of sprinkler, oscillating, revolving or otherwise, then leaving on a trip to, say, Aruba. Extra points are awarded for also drenching the neighbor’s newly stained and sealed deck in the process.
The one prevailing rule for all these events is this: never give up the hose. It’s yours, you earned it. And really, there is no better qualified hoser in your household than you. (If you don’t know who you are, the rest of your family does.)
As any true competitor understands, cross-training is essential. Most hosers get the bulk of their training done by running laps at large warehouse types of yard and hardware stores. For fast fueling, the food of choice is a foot-long German sausage with extra kraut.
Attire for these events is based on personal style but might include at least one of the following: a T-shirt from any event, non-hosing, occurring prior to 1987, a baseball cap advertising farm equipment or other coveted heavy machinery, and shorts that rest anywhere between 2 to 5 inches below the natural waistline. Extra points are awarded if the wearer can actually remember what the term “waistline” means.
Plain cotton crew socks and a pair of cross-trainers are the footwear of choice. Although argyles and a pair of wing tips are not out of the question.
Not all competitors, however, will follow these fashion tips. My father, a world-class hoser in his day, would not have been caught dead, or at least in the yard, dressed in this manner. He preferred the gentleman gardener style.
His personal fashion contribution was a pair of toboggan-sized rubber knee pads, which might have served nicely as an emergency flotation device in the event of a water landing. Given the amount of white water he whipped up getting yard debris to the storm drain, this was not an inconceivable scenario.
It was my father who introduced me to the Zen master version of hosing. This occurs at the end of a good day’s work. The family chores, delegated out by the head hoser, have been well-executed. A perfectly made hamburger with all the trimmings has been digested. A buttery bowl of popcorn and a Coke float is in the works. It’s 20 minutes before everybody’s favorite TV show. As the light of a perfect summer day wanes, the hose and nozzle are readied. The head hoser steps into the moment. The yard, whatever size, is transformed into the Ponderosa. Acres and acres of land roll out before the hoser’s eyes. To behold it is a beautiful thing. To water it, a dream realized.
The water cascades over the Ponderosa in a mystical rainbow arc. The water brings the land to life, feeds the fields, nurtures the crops. The vast beauty of Nature is preserved. Well, the pansies look better, anyway.
It’s a summer lesson: he who holds the hose, holds the power. But maintaining proper perspective is critical, too. After all, to paraphrase that inimitable jokester, Freud, sometimes a hose is just a hose.
writer who lives in Spokane. Contact her care of The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane 99201, or Kcorspence@aol.com