Raking In History

Recently, my parents decided the deck off the back of their house needed replacing. (OK, it wasn't so much my parents deciding it as it was a couple of the beams breaking that decided it for them, but you get the point.) Anyway, a crew came by this weekend to take away most of the old decking, exposing parts of the yard that hadn't seen sunlight in nearly two decades. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the deck at my parents' house, it's only a couple steps off the ground. Therefore, my father thought this was a great time to rake out that area because while we haven't been able to get under this deck for all this time, leaves and other small, wind-blown items have had no such issues. Given the number of years that have passed since the deck was completed, there were not nearly as many leaves as I would have thought. But, what amazed me was all the other random items we found under there, some of which were a complete mystery as to where they came from.

First off, there were cans and bottles with logos that haven't existed for decades. This disturbed me because it made us look bad. My family may not be the most diligent of recyclers (admittedly, things slip through the cracks every now and again), but we aren't the type of people who would just throw bottles under the deck rather than get up and throw a bottle in the trash. Also, there is only one way under the deck and that is over by the air conditioner, which means you are pretty much in the house by that point. That's why I think people are wandering up the cliffs and tossing them in there. Worst of all, it's clearly been going on a while, because we're talking the old-school Coca-Cola bottles with the hard black plastic bottom. Seeing them was a blast from the past.

However, it was all the sporting goods that really confused me. First off, there was a full-sized soccer ball under the deck. Given the way my family has refused to embrace the beautiful game, can anyone postulate a scenario in which a soccer ball made it into the backyard? I'm thinking aliens, because that is the most realistic thing I can come up with. There was also a badminton birdie and I couldn't tell you if we even own a badminton net. But, the main thing under there were tennis balls. It's not like the dog put them under there, because while Harry was a great many things, he was not a chaser of anything. And not only were there a few loose tennis balls, but we literally found one of those plastic containers with two of the three tennis balls still inside. My sister was the only one who played tennis and while I don't remember her career being full of trophies, I don't remember her ever getting so frustrated as to start throwing equipment under the deck. I'm baffled as to where this stuff came from.

Raking through all this debris was like being on a mini-archaeological dig. Frankly, it took me back to the days when I was super into dinosaurs. Suddenly I was glad that I never pursued that career, because if I can't figure out where stuff like tennis balls and soda cans are coming from then I would have no chance telling you what happened to some giant lizard from hundreds of millions of years ago. So clearly what I learned from this experience is that we all choose our career paths for a reason. Oh, and I also learned that if you've lost anything in the passed couple of years, swing by my parents house, because there is a good chance whatever has gone missing is under their deck. Seriously, it's like the other end of the Bermuda Triangle under there.