Miss Crankypants lives in a “moss-covered cave in Oregon,” where it’s rumored that the liquid sunshine keeps everything green. An unfortunate side effect of greenness is LEAVES. Lots of leaves. A plethora of maple, oak, ash, hemlock and you-name-it trees, all conspiring to bury your house alive. And what defense do we pitiful humans have against such might? A lousy plastic rake from Home Depot.

Single rake likes long walks, snuggling and sitting by the fire.

In Miss CP’s neighborhood you could try to use a gas-powered leaf blower to get rid of the leaves. Of course you’d probably disappear suddenly, never to be seen again. In this end of the country, we want our leaf-gathering natural, organic. Rakey.
The gi-normous twin big leaf maples on the edge of Miss Cranky’s driveway laugh when they see her coming. She uses a rake with fewer teeth than a jack-o-lantern on the day after Halloween. This pathetic tool used to sport a full grille. It even had a special attachment to make the rake bend over and pick up the leaf pile (just kidding). But now? Poor rakee-poo couldn’t chew oatmeal if his life depended on it.
And Miss CP’s life does depend on getting these offensive leaves raked up into nice neat piles. All her neighbors have done their duty. The curb is festooned with an impressive line of neatly stacked and sorted leaves, just waiting for the first pickup by the city. But these piles make it impossible to park your car on the street.
Why, just yesterday, a friend drove off looking like a snow plow, her car’s front bumper pushing approximately eleven billion leaves all the way to the corner.
The neighbors all stood in their driveways scowling at Miss CP. So of course she had to go round up all those stray dogies and corral them back in their proper piles.
All while using a rake with three teeth left in its miserable head.
Miss Crankypants is thinking of painting a face on her crummy rake and using it to scare away all the little leaf blowers who come trick or treating. Lord knows that rake’s not good for anything else.