THE DIRT MAN

I didn’t know what to think the day I came home from work and the neighbor woman across the street told me that a man was lurking in my wife’s flowerbeds.

Not sure what I was hearing, I asked, “A man in the flowerbeds?”

“Yes,” she replied, and added for emphasis, “A man with a flashlight.” She explained that as soon as she went to get her cordless phone to call the police, the man had mysteriously disappeared. “It was real early in the morning,” she said, as if to justify why she hadn’t at least called us.

At that moment, it dawned on me who she saw.

The next day, when a coworker got into my van, I asked him, “What were you doing in my wife’s flowerbeds?”

He had been riding his ten-speed to my house every weekday morning. He seemed somewhat embarrassed.

“I wasn’t in the flowerbeds, I was looking at the different plants with my bike light.”

“Sure you were,” I responded. His answer seemed reasonable, considering he teaches Horticulture Classes at the prison … oh, and catches a few small fish once in a blue moon.