During quarantine, I’ve been trying to spend time outside each day. I watch the squirrels, listen to the birds, and commune with nature.
Actually, I’m mainly getting out so that I don’t completely lose it being stuck in the house most of the time.
Lately, though, I’ve also been watching my husband. Before I get to that, let me give you some background.
I grew up in the city. Back then, we weren’t surrounded by trees. If you wanted trees, you went to the park.
But here in the county, there are tons of trees around our home.
Normally, this is a good thing.
The trees provide homes for many different kinds of birds that we try to feed until the monster squirrels come and steal the food.
They provide us with shade when it’s hot.
Soon, fall will be here, and the leaves will change, giving us a beautiful multi-colored show.
But there’s something else about some of these trees. They’ve started to attack my husband.
You read that right. I found this out the other day when he came in from getting the newspaper.
“I have to walk around like this now,” he said and put his hands over his head.
“All right, I give up. What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m protecting myself,” he sputtered. “There are tons of acorns falling from the trees everywhere. I just know I’m going to get hit in the head.”
You can probably guess what I did when I heard this. I rolled my eyes.
“You’re a strong man,” I said to my seemingly shrinking-violet husband, “a little acorn is not going to hurt you.”
“You don’t know. It’s not like there’s only one falling. When I’m walking up there, I can hear tons of them falling — all at once,” he explained. “I’m not afraid of getting hit by one. I think I’ll get hit by a dozen at the same time.”
Oh. My. God.
It’s come to this.
My husband is really not a coward.
I chose this opportunity to remind him of this.
Then I told him that the chances of a whole bunch of acorns hitting him in the head at once is pretty slim.
And it’s not like these are huge anvils that hit the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons.
These things are tiny.
Sometimes when they fall from the trees, they bounce on the driveway.
If a few hit him at once, it’s not like they’re going to behead him or give him a concussion.
At least I don’t think so.
A couple of days after our first conversation about the falling acorns and the killer trees, my husband was still covering his head.
I could have kept making fun of him, but instead, I would just smile when he came in the door.
One day, he came in, stomped up to me and said, “Okay, there. I walked up the driveway without covering my head…And I was freaking out the whole time because I could hear lots and lots of acorns falling. Some landed right next to me.”
“Did you get hit in the head?” I asked.
“Well, no,” he responded.
“See, you’ll be just fine.”
I think he’ll be just fine.
Uh, I hope he’ll be just fine.
Because I know that if he even gets grazed by a falling acorn, I will hear about it for the rest of our lives.
If he gets hit, he might start wearing a hardhat when he goes to get the newspaper.
And I have no idea how to explain that to the neighbors…
Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, when she’s not spending hours sweeping up thousands of stupid acorns that have fallen onto her driveway, writes “Wojo’s World®” from her home office–where she is safe from the falling debris. She’s also the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.