[Flint]

The leafblower.

Look at this thing. It's a massive, gasoline-powered abomination designed to do the work of a push broom.

What's wrong with the broom? Sure, you have to do the pushing yourself, but on the other hand you don't have to lug around a 50-pound backpack. The old-fashioned broom works just fine, and doesn't burn gasoline (this is a finite resource, folks). The broom is also considerably less noisy--nobody is passing laws outlawing broom noise.

Maybe I thought I would get used to seeing landscape crews running leafblowers; but the fact is that I still marvel at the utter ridiculousness of this device every single time I see one.

To see a leafblower in action is to witness the world's laziest spectacle. Instead of using a broom to push grass clippings a few feet over, a gas-guzzling, giant hair dryer is lolligagged back and forth, pointed generally in the groundwardly direction. It's a wonder people don't fall asleep while operating these things.

I realize...maybe you have a leafblower, and love it. I would be interested to know how you can operate one of these things without feeling foolish.