Friday Funny- Flowers?

When I was growing up we lived across the street from a nice older German couple who kept their home in tip-top shape and even more so, their flower beds. I doubt there was ever a weed allowed to get a foot hold in the perfect soil that was tilled and fertilized and kept in optimum condition for the best growing conditions.

Now our yard was nothing much to look at. A bed of petunias, some evergreens gracing the front of the house and a lawn that was usually looking pretty good and full of clover--which the bees loved. More than once in a summer I would end up with a bee sting from running barefoot through the yard.

Mom had a great sense of humor and one year decided to have some fun with our German neighbors. Way before it should have been time for full blooming flowers to be in the yard--especially our yard, my mom went out and bought a bunch of plastic flowers. In those days we didn't have the cloth-like flowers or "silk" flowers we do today. They were fairly realistic though, certainly from a distance. 

I don't know how she managed to get them in the ground without our neighbors noticing but Mom would chuckle every time she saw our neighbor standing in his yard, hands on hips, staring across at our "blooming flowers." 

He must have thought that eventually they would die from neglect or a good frost since they had been planted so early. A few weeks later, he could no longer stand it. He came across the street and up to the house to ask my mother what kind of flowers she had planted. She took him around to the front flowerbed, pulled one out and said, "Plastic!"

Now our German neighbors were a bit stoic but I remember my mom saying she saw a bit of a smile appear on his face and he went home shaking his head all the way. Once Mom was in the house, she burst into peals of laughter and we heard about the one she'd pulled over on our neighbors for years after.