Fuck leaf blowers.

It was Sunday morning, about 9:30 – the time when I’m usually hitting the halfway point of the best sleep I’ve managed to grab over the past week. The time when I should be dreaming of endless fields covered with magical chocolate brownies or entire swimming pools filled with ice cream and assorted toppings.

The spot I found on my bed – a position it took me all night to finally squirm into – was more than perfect. My head remained buried beneath billowing pillows, yet my heavenly soft sheets betrayed me for the floor. I lay on my bed in a haphazard heap of limbs, unconscious, helpless, worthless. The last thing I wanted to hear in those wee hours of the morning was some asshole neighbor operating an obnoxious device that literally blows.

I couldn’t possibly be the only dehydrated bedhead still clinging desperately to slumber, could I? Was I that lazy? No way, I thought. Couldn’t be.

Details from the evening before began to isolate themselves in my memory.
Apparently, the Lorax – a sturdy brut of glassware constructed in the heart of Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue – showed his dastardly face, allowing my friends and I to partake in a sesh that will remain hidden, deep within our clouded minds for years to come.

More memories gushed out of my skull. Following yet another session with the Lorax – hash-accompanied this time thanks to the tenacious speed of my local dealer – came the packs of cigarettes, the scrumptious Black and Milds, the keg stands, the Kings games and the tremendously relieving piss off the Del Playa cliffs.

There were gaping holes around every corner of my mind though. Not a single piece of the night’s adventure fit together nicely and, to tell you the truth, I fucking suck at jigsaw puzzles.

So I gave up. It didn’t matter what had happened. I was tired and the same shrill noise continued to reverberate in and out of my eardrums like a horny prison inmate come group shower time.

I couldn’t stand it. Something needed to be done, and fast, but all I could think about besides dynamiting that leaf blower was the Lorax; it lay within arm’s reach.

I tried moving my right arm. Fuck, no use. I had myself in an armlock that even Hulk Hogan would admire. So, like I always do when my right arm fails me, I just switched to the left. Success. I grabbed hold of my Seussian accomplice, loaded him up and snapped away. Take that leaf blowers. I plopped back down in ultimate comfort and gathered my thoughts.

But still, what is the world coming to? Why can’t an exhausted man find peace in his own bed, or his own dazed and confused mind for that matter? Why must I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, contemplating the hideous acts I would employ on that devil of a blower if I ever get off my lanky ass? All the damn thing does is move leaves from one spot to the next. It doesn’t even pick them up.

If humans can invent keg taps, portable lighters and keychain bottle openers, then there is no reason we can’t outdo the lowly leaf blower. With all the imaginative genius bumbling through Isla Vista, you’d think this problem would have been solved by now.

Shit, I’ve got it. Mankind needs a leaf sucker.

But alas, I’ve been beaten to the patent board. Apparently, the company Yard-Man has already experimented with such powerful sucking apparatuses. Fuckers. The damn things cost more than their blowers. How can we rid the world of such menaces to society when the problem remains more expensive? Should I attempt to solve this disastrous problem and give all you lethargies out there some auditory reprieve?

Meh, forget it. I’m going back to bed.

Daily Nexus Assistant Opinion Editor Jeff Gibson is going out to buy a leaf sucker, but it won’t be for leaves.