I’ve been digging in the dirt and yanking out old roots. Tilling. Raking. A little cussing, though not out loud. Marion helped me rip out the old plants last October. I am finally preparing the ground to put in new plants across the front of my house.

Please kick me in the seat of my pants. I am breaking one of the cardinal rules of landscaping. This should have been done last fall. Now I’ll be married to a water hose all summer long.

The day is warm. The air is light. It’s a nice change of pace to be busy outside and comfortable in a T-shirt and jeans. This is why most people do this sort of thing in the spring. It feels so good after a long winter’s nap.

I used to dig and tug in the dirt with ease. Today, I am finding that to stand and bend and pull for a couple of hours wears on my L4/L5 region, which means that from time to time I get on my knees to tug at roots and push the rake. It eases the lumbar pressure.

But I didn’t barge into your living room today to talk about digging and planting. I wouldn’t want to waste your time with a story on dirt. Your capacity for great literature and provocative thinking deserves something far more enlightening than that, which, by the way, begs the question as to why you are still reading this.

No. I have bigger plans. This story is born out of hours of the finest research. At least three cups of coffee and two cinnamon rolls have fueled the thought that has gone into the creation of these lines of wisdom. The world is about to take notice.

I want to tell you about the water hose I bought.

This is the finest water hose money can buy. Wait. Let me rephrase that. This is the finest water hose that I found on the shelf in the one store where I looked. I looked online and saw a few hoses way better than this one, but they cost nearly sixty bucks, and this one was $34.95. Bird in hand.

First, let me say that the label lies. I don’t know why the marketing gurus even bother with the ink to say that this hose is “kink resistant”. They all say it. They all lie.

One huge mistake they make is in the way they roll up the hose for ease of packaging and shipping. This is a 110ft hose rolled up in a coil smaller than a basketball hoop. You couldn’t fit a coffee cup through the hole in the middle. No human on earth is ever going to roll this hose up this tight again.

This hose has traveled over 8,000 miles in an overseas container wrapped up in this coil. I’m no scientist, but synthetic materials have memory. Later today, it’s gonna take me and three monkeys to uncoil this thing and lay it out in the sun on the asphalt.

And guess what? The end of the hose, the one inside the smallest part of the coil, is folded over and kinked.

I grab a pair of side cutters off my bench to remove the titanium-human-resistant straps around the hose. They pop off and the hose doesn’t move. It’s like a snake not ready to strike anything.

I noticed some writing on the backside of the cardboard cover. I chuckled thinking maybe I needed instructions on how to use a hose, so I read for the entertainment. It turns out that the manufacturer cares about my safety.

WARNING: Do not drink from a water hose. Water hoses can come in contact with chemicals and contaminants. Stagnant water inside a hose may carry harmful bacteria. Make sure you drink clean water from a trusted source.

You know where this is going.

I’m 10 years old. It’s summer in Georgia and hotter than a pancake on a griddle. I’m done hoeing in the garden for daddy. Mama doesn’t want me inside because I’m nasty. But I’m thirsty.

There’s a hose on a spigot by the well. It’s a shallow dug well, maybe only 25 or 30 foot deep, but the water is cold. The end of the hose is lying over in the water trough just inside the fence next to the well. Cow slobber floats on top.

I grab the hose and ease it out of its submerged state and through the barbed fence. I do not bother to wipe the end, nor do I inspect it for foreign objects. I turn on the spigot just enough to get a small geyser out the end while holding it straight up.

I drink. I gulp. I take in a surge of water until finally I have to come up for air. Then I go back for more. Water is drooling down my chin and neck. If I had had a shirt on, the front would be wet.

In an act of sheer bravery, after drinking, I take the hose over the top of my head and let the water run down my back. I quiver with chills, but it feels so good I do it again.

I shake the best I can, like I’ve seen the dogs do. Wipe my face. And I take one last drink from the hose before turning off the spigot.

Maybe I should be amazed that I’ve lived this long. Evidently, according to the warning inside the package, I’ve been putting myself at great risk for years. By all accounts I should have died 3,478 times by now.

Here’s what I think. I was born at the perfect time on this earth.

“You get this from a water hose warning,” you say.

Yes, I do.

If you’re anywhere near my age, you know what I mean. We grew up in a world without warning labels. We didn’t need them. We could think for ourselves. We could listen to Walter Cronkite and draw our own conclusions about what was going on in the world.

We were smart enough to know that gasoline is flammable. Which is how my eyebrows got singed off one time. We had enough sense not to drink household cleaners. I never once asked for a glass of bleach with my hamburger.

Sometimes I think common sense has taken flight. We are swimming in a pool of pure stupidity. Not for human consumption. May be harmful if swallowed. Injuries may result. Not intended for use by a child.

I get it. Stupid is why we have the warning labels. Unethical lawyers take advantage of stupid. Stupidity leads to fear. Fear makes us think that others know best. And those others write warning labels that leave some of us wondering what must have happened to get this one in print.

My dad gave me his own kind of warning. “That space between your ears is meant to do more than just hold up your hat.”

If that’s true, a lot of these warning labels would be unnecessary. Kids would drink from a water hose on a hot summer’s day.

And the world would be a better place.