Vladimir Putin's Top 7 Titilating Leaf Blowing Tips

NEW YORK, New York---Sometimes it's hard to tell truth from lies. Forty-eight hours ago, Friday morning, I'm sitting in my office trying to keep cool when in walks the original Matroshka doll. Could have been an heiress to the King of Prussia. She's crying, and tells me she needs help dealing with her ex-lover, some big shot New York real estate mogul. As she holds out a wad of cash and says to go to the New York public library and look in the "yard work" section, she catches a bullet in the jugular and the sound of the window shattering hits my ear. As I hold her, she struggles to get out her last dying words.

I say, "Do you have a name?! A name! God damnit, don't die on me now!!" All I hear is a gurgle and something like "Gruuuummmmmpppp."

I'm not one to follow up on fantastical theories, especially ones involving snipers taking out Russian dolls, but she gave me twenty-five thousand dollars, and the least I could do was to go to the library. After all, a tip like that confounds me like dog shit on my shoe unless I get to the bottom of it.

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That afternoon, I was on the first flight to New York City, "The Big Apple," "The Land of Opportunity." Hadn't been back since Jessica and I split. She caught me doing patty-cake with a client, and she left L.A. for New York, and I hadn't had the heart to visit after that.

One thing that always gets me about New York is the smell. It's like a billion farts filtered through a wall of hundred dollar bills. You can always taste a fart in New York, and you can always know who done it. I don't know why, but it seems like farts have more personality in New York, more attitude, than in other cities. When I got off the A Train at Time's Square, I looked up and saw a brightly lit billboard which read: "Now playing! Jessica Rabbit stars in Hamilton!" "Good for her," I thought. "Finally making her dream come true," but as I turned to carry on my way, I caught a whiff of that unmistakable eau de toilette, one of Jessica's farts.

"I see you're still wearing the suspenders I gave you, Phillip."

"Sure I am. They're great suspenders."

"Well, at least something is keeping your pants up these days."

I didn't say nothing. Cheap shot or not, I deserved it.

"What brings you to the City?"

"You know, Jessica. With me, it's always work. Got a case. Something about a library and a bigshot named Grump."

"Grump? Hmm, never heard of him. Maybe they meant Old Ben Kanobi. He used to live up the road here aways."

"No, I'm sure it was something Grump or something that rhymes with Grump."

"Well, there was a rich asshole who tried to grab my pussy backstage the other day, and I gave him a piece of my mind. I punched his balls so hard he had to go to the hospital and get them removed from his lungs."

"What's the name, darling."

"Dump. Mr. Arnold K. Dump."

Jessica Rabbit. I don't know how I could have ever taken a dame like that for granted. She was my first toon, and probably my last. Toons don't go with guys like me. But, that's for another tale.

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A Miss Gertrude Stein guided me into the archives of the New York Public Library, and led me to the "yard work" section. She said I wasn't the first one to come looking here in recent days. Another private snoop who didn't drop his name, but he stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni. Sounded to me like someone trying a bit too hard to look like a yankee, but I couldn't be sure. I made a mental note and continued on with my work.

Apparently, he didn't find what he was looking for, because he left in a fury. Maybe I did have something nobody else had. When I got to the microfiche the Russian doll told me about, I found an article by a guy named Vladimir Putin. The name sounded familiar, and I could guess it was Russian. The article was about leaf blowing:

Seven Titilating Leaf Blowing Tips, by V. Putin 

It's that time of year again for yard work. Most people know me as great world leader, but I also have a green thumb, and one of my favorite hobbies is yard work. If you want your yard to make great again, read on!

1. Plan where you want your leaves to ultimately land. Position a tarp in the designated spot, so you can haul the leaves to your compost heap when you’re finished. If you’re blowing them directly into a wooded area or compost pile, do it in sections. Collect your leaves into your designated spot and then separate 6’ sections of leaves at a time, blowing them to their final resting place.
2. Work in one direction only. That will help prevent you from blowing leaves into an area you’ve already worked through. 
3. Hold the blower at your side and point the front end at the ground at a shallow angle. Use a smooth back-and-forth motion as you walk slowly with the leaf blower in front of you.
4. Wind – If you can, remove your leaves on a day when the wind is blowing in the direction you want them to go, or on a day that is still. You’ll find that doing otherwise is seriously counter-productive.
5. Wet – Bottom line, dry leaves are easier to remove with a blower than wet leaves. Test the moisture of a leaf pile by directing your blower at its base. If it barely budges, it might be best to do another chore instead and come back the next day.
6. A leaf blower is most effective for gathering the bulk of a lawn’s leaves into large piles, to be removed with a tarp or by hand. Don’t expect to blow every last leaf off your lawn with a leaf blower. That will drive you crazy. Try hard not to be too fussy. You can follow up with a leaf rake at the end to get the stragglers.
7. The vacuum mode of a leaf blower is best reserved for smaller and less accessible jobs, where a leaf rake would be difficult to use. Use it for leaves that have been trapped around rocks, at the bases of fences, or in the tight spots around your house. It’s also handy for getting leaves off your deck, or for removing small amounts of dirt and grass clippings from your drive.

Well, there you have it. Those are my latest 7 tips. Get out there and blow!

I didn't know what to make of it. I made a copy and left the library. Outside, I lit a smoke and looked up the names of gardening reporters at The New York Times, called them, and scheduled to meet at Starbucks within the hour. Tommy Thumb, the reporter, met me and immediately gasped aloud at the article. He informed me that Putin had been hiding out as the President of Russia and they suspected he might have been involved with some kind of international money laundering scheme. I didn't know nothing about that, but I said, "What does any of it have to do with Arnold Dump?"

"There's no telling, Phillip. If I were you, though, I would get the heck out of Dodge, because if it's true and you're not the only one on this trail, this news about Putin could blow the roof off of multiple international conspiracy theories."

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. As he did so, a piece of a peacock feather fell out. With shaky hands, he lit a cigarette and continued:

"This thing could answer who killed Kennedy, what happened to Britney Spears, and Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: Season 3."

"No kiddin'?" I say, as I surreptitiously redistribute my weight from my chair to the balls of my feet.

"I don't know nothin' about no Kennedy or Twin Peaks, but I do have one more question for you: what's the house that Ruth built?"

"What, huh?"

Like a gazelle, I jumped off the balls of my feet, grabbed hold of a ceiling fan above us, did a spinning somersault over Tommy's head, and put him in a sleeper hold. People at the Starbucks got alarmed with me standing there holding this passed-out New York Times reporter, but I knew enough about New York City to get out of this one.

I said, "It's OK. Everybody stay calm. This man is a sexist, racist, bigot. He just made an off-color joke which may have triggered any one of you, so I am making a citizens social justice arrest."

It was dead silent.

I made one last ditch effort, shouting "Hashtag MeToo!" Everyone stood up and gave me a standing ovation.

Amid all the noise and distraction, I reached inside his pocket and I found his wallet. In it, his identification card. On it, the name, "Vladimir Putin, President of Russia." Behind it, the business card and private phone number of "Arnold K. Dump."

...to be continued.