This one is an original. It's a little bit "off-the-wall." The idea came from a conversation that I overheard between several young women at an HOA meeting. They were voicing their frustration with the available lawn services. They felt that they were being ripped-off. That's the reality behind this story. The rest is pure fiction. Any resemblance to reality is strictly accidental.
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Starting with Faith
It had been a rough eighteen months. I tried to help my wife fight a losing battle with cancer for the first six months. I've been trying to recover and get back to some semblance of normalcy for the last twelve months.
During her illness, sex was the last thing on my mind. I didn't want to hurt her, and due to the location of the tumor, that ruled sex out. Also, I was too worried and otherwise occupied to give it much thought.
Several months after we buried her, I began to function more normally. That led me to some porn sites. I was surprised to find out that while I became aroused, I couldn't get much of an erection. It was more like a noodle than a banana. I began to wonder if what I needed was a real woman instead of a porn site.
Before she died, my wife had told me that a quarter of the houses in our development were occupied by widow women, most of them about my age. Near the end, she advised me to get acquainted with some of them after she was gone. She was suffering every minute of every day, but she was worrying about me.
She probably didn't know that another quarter of the houses were occupied by stay-at-home moms. I found that out from a friend in the HOA. That was a full half of the houses with women available during the day. So, how could I get to know some of them? Perhaps in the Biblical sense?
That got me to thinking about my neighbor, Faith Morris. My window faced her house, so I knew pretty much all that went on over there.
She was a twenty-something single mom. Maybe a thirty-something. I'm bad at guessing ages. I remember when they had age guessers at carnivals and circuses. I would go broke doing that!
Faith's significant other left six months ago. She barely ever leaves the house and she has very few visitors. When we get a chance to talk to each other, she seems to be a nice girl. I would call her demure.
She told me during one of our conversations that she was probably going to lose her house. Her boyfriend had been paying half of the payment, and now that he was gone, so was his money.
She had an arrangement with her next-door neighbor, a friend named Hope, that helped them both eke by. They were in the same boat, so to speak.
They both were currently without a significant other. They both had a kid. They both worked minimum wage jobs at the factory. They'd arranged to work different shifts so they could babysit for each other and save the child care expenses. They were barely making it.
One of the things that really upset Faith was the letters and fines she kept getting from the HOA for having an "unkept" lawn. The lawn services charged $40 for each mowing. She could only afford mowing once a month. If weeds were growing fast, that would cost her a fine of at least $25 by the HOA. The fines escalated for repeat offenders. Hope was in the same situation.
We had one of those neighborhood blog things where people complained about noisy dogs, stray cats and such. There were lots of complaints there too, mostly by widow women, about the cost of the lawn mowing services. They thought the $40 was too high for the limited service they received. They had to pay for mowing every two weeks to avoid HOA fines. They complained that it cost extra to get them to spray weeds, fertilize the grass or treat for fire ants. They were pretty upset.
Where there's unrest, there's opportunity.
I came up with a plan. I had become quite an expert on the care and feeding of warm-season grasses in the three years that we'd been living in this Central Texas community.
I don't mind mowing and I've got some good lawn care equipment. It just might be my ticket to kill several birds with one rock.
I printed up an advertisement to hang on doorknobs. It read:
Lawn Doctor
Two Plans
Your Choice
Doctor is In
Call Joe Herman
That's all it said. At the bottom was my phone number.
I placed four of the ads on doorknobs in my neighborhood. Three of them were placed at the houses of widow women that I'd already checked out.
One was placed at Faith's house, since I already knew her.
Then I sat back and waited to see if any fish would bite. I didn't have much hope for plan #2, but I might get some takers on plan #1.
Two days after I distributed my ads, I got a call from Faith. She said she was surprised that I was in the mowing business. Guess that was because of my age.
She wanted some information about my two plans. I told her I would be glad to cover them with her. All I wanted was a face-to-face and a cup of coffee. I would come over anytime she had a few minutes and coffee in the pot.
She asked if I could come over in a half hour. Of course, I could.
I sipped my coffee and told her about plan #1.
"I'll mow every two weeks. While mowing, I'll hand spray any existing weeds. The product that I use will kill the weed's root, so they won't come back. Also, I'll treat any fire ant hills that I see.
"I'll apply fertilizer in the spring and the fall.
"I'll apply a pre-emergent weed killer in the spring and fall too, which will keep new weeds from sprouting up.
"My charge is $50 per month plus the cost of the chemicals that I mentioned. If you receive any fines from the HOA after I've taken care of your lawn for a month, I'll pay the fine myself."
She seemed impressed. She knew it was a better deal than she had with her lawn service. I would be mowing twice as often as she had been able to afford before, and keeping the weeds and ants down too. She said, "That's a good plan, Joe. What's the second one?
Now that the rubber was hitting the road, I was getting cold feet. That second plan will do nothing but get me into trouble. I made up my mind to just drop it.
"Well, since you like the first one, why don't we just go with that, Faith?"
"Well, would the second one be higher or cheaper, Joe?"
"Cheaper moneywise, but costlier in other ways. Let's just go with plan #1, Faith."
"Joe, if plan #2 costs less money, I want to hear about it. You advertised two plans, so tell me about the second one."
I guess there's no way out of this now. I did advertise two plans. Damn, I hope she doesn't hit me with a frying pan.
"OK, Faith, I'll tell you. But as I'm talking, if at any time you're offended or uncomfortable, just hold up your hand and I'll stop. I don't want to upset you and I don't want you to get mad at me." She gave me a wary look as she nodded her head.
I gritted my teeth and took a chance. "Plan #2 allows you to get all of the features mentioned in plan number one without spending any money. Even the chemicals will be free. You won't be charged one red cent for all of those services."
"Ok, Joe, what's the catch?" she asked.
"Well, I assume you know that I've been a widower for about a year. I've finally progressed to the point of getting horny. What I'm asking for is sexual favors. It would just be every other week, corresponding to the mowing schedule. Only one orgasm and I'm done. Does that interest you at all?"
"Joe, how old are you?"
"I never tell my age, but I'll give you a hint. I graduated from college when I was 23 years old. I went to work for Consolidated Products right out of college. I worked for them for 49 years. They were the only company I ever worked for. I retired three years ago."
She just shrugged. What can I say? She's a blond, not that there's anything wrong with that.
"Ok, Joe. That's pretty old. You're probably older than my dad. What, exactly, do you mean by sexual favors? Are you talking Oral and anal? Are you talking bareback? How long does it take for you to get that one orgasm? Minutes? Hours? How good is your health? I can't have you dying on me."