I’m looking for a small sign from above.

Nothing too fancy. I’m not asking for an omen with a bird flying backwards. Just something simple telling me what in the heck I should do with all the pokey things attacking me in my yard and explaining why my stupid grass is growing in the middle of winter.

I would like to know what happened to the big bad winter so many were forecasting in October and November. I realize there has been snow and freezing temperatures the last couple of days, but I’m sorry. A couple of days of snow is not a killer winter to my evil lawn, which I am certain would grow if it were located on the seventh level of hell. Maybe it is and I haven’t been told. I have discovered my kids never tell me anything I really need to know.

If you think I’m kidding, I am not. Do you know what I did Sunday? Mowed my lawn. I am certain I am the only person in the hemisphere who mowed a lawn on Sunday. It is the middle of winter. It’s still snowing and there is frost on the ground in the mornings.

Freezing temperatures do not phase my lawn from hell.

And the good news is the first day of spring is about three weeks away. Oh happy day! This means all the green, brown or yellow things in my yard will soon begin growing like crazy, as if anything slowed them down this winter.

I can’t believe my grass is growing in the middle of freezing weather. I never give it fertilizer. I glare at it every chance I get.

Cover it with snow, ice, whatever; it grows. It’s like some sort of punishment and I’ve never done anything wrong that I can remember.

I love it when I hear people debate density requirements at city meetings complaining about houses being built too close together with no lawns. Here’s a deal for you. Build as many houses as you can cram into my backyard. The only mitigation is the happy couples who buy these joints have to mow my lawn and prune all those deranged thorny things that attack me when I’m not looking. 

Pruning is something I have never been able to figure out. I try to read about it, but I always either fall asleep or start thinking about eating brownies with frosting.

Would someone please tell me why God couldn’t have put labels on plants. I mean really. He does all these other fancy things like split oceans, make air, score touchdowns and home runs. How about a simple thing like putting little signs on plants with LED lights telling me what to do.

Something like, “Prune me, now, please.”

Or better yet, “If you prune me, your wife will kill you, knucklehead.”

Instead, men all over the world are left staring at green sticks while asking themselves, “Do I cut it here or there or spray some poison on it and act innocent?”

Sunday, after my fun with mowing adventure, I had to chop all these green things that I suspected were roses. They didn’t look much like roses after I was done.

Think how much easier it would have been with a few God labels.

How hard can that really be?

One thing I have discovered in my yard is if I try to prune a plant like I am supposed to, it will immediately die and then I feel like a murderer.

If I try to dig some plant up to kill it off,  it will come up everywhere like there is some hairy beast living under my yard cramming things up through the stinking dirt.

I’m convinced I will spend the rest of my pitiful life in my yard and all I will do is kill the wrong stuff and make all the weeds and wicked things grow more.

Just little signs from above is all I’m asking for, with a few flashing lights and clear directions.