"Wait, free TREES?? Hahahaha, no thanks."

Although it seems like all I do is get injured and make sarcastic comments occasionally I do actually work here in AmeriCorps. Recently we've been "canvassing" which means being the person I usually hide from when the doorbell rings. Since I myself loathe answering the door to hear some political or informational crap, I knew this would be a challenge and maybe make me wish I was back in Lake Charles, Louisiana building houses *gasp*. When I heard we were giving things way I was still skeptical about our potential success. Free trees are a lot harder to get rid of then one might think.

To add entertainment to this task and elevate it above the Louisiana "experience" Kate and I came up with several characteristics of houses in which a "tree-hater" would dwell and therefore be unworthy of our time. These became more and more arbitrary as the afternoons wore on, but I still stand by their accuracy at predicting laughter, anger or a simple "no".

The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:
*They have stumps of trees in their yard. They obviously hate trees.
*The house is for sale
*They have more than one newspaper in their yard. Must be on vacation.
*Duplex/apartments
*Power lines in the backyard
*Unkempt yard
*Too well kept/perfectly landscaped yard
*Too many trees already
*Fenced and gated yard
*Beware of Dog/No Trespassing/No Soliciting sign
*Front yard is on a hill
*Church. We thought churches would be perfect places to plant trees but after one horrible encounter where the pastor told us he would cut down anything we tried to plant and he'd already cut down every tree on the property, we were too shocked and wounded to try another.


When we aren't forcing trees on the residents of Baltimore, we fill our hours with endless and pointless bickering. Amidst that we indulge in massive snack breaks during which we binge on everything. We eat our feelings to forget the pointless bickering and the fact that although we're all jumping at the bit to get out of AmeriCorps, none of us have been successful as of yet in the real world job market.

And until I trip in one of our tree pits and break a leg I have nothing more exciting to report. Until that time I will continue making this world a better place, one hole at a time.