No Stupid Questions

Petromasculinity?

If a genie told me I could erase all land-mines or two-stroke leaf-blowers, I'd choose landmines, but the silence while I considered would be uncomfortably long.

You're having a rough day. Seems like everybody wants a piece of you and they aren't kind about it. So you put on some ear protection, grab your leaf blower and step outside. Nobody bothers you out there. The leaf blower yells nonstop the way you wish you could and even though you aren't doing the yelling, there is still something cathartic about the noise. It creates a bubble where you are left alone. As the minutes pass and the debris collects into neat little piles, you can slowly regain your calm. The urge to explode, unleashing your anger and frustration, in an irreparable way ebbs and you feel like you can hold your shit together for a little while longer.

Or they are in a feud with their neighbors and are trying to piss them off.

I just got a 765cfm battery-powered leaf blower and...

...it's so much fun. Mindlessly entertaining. I don't even care if I just blow the leaves back and forth, it's just...weirdly fun.

Also fun to blow random things around the house until someone gets mad.

Well I ain't gonna get down on my knees and blow them myself

Either the boss said he had to do it, our his homelife is so bad, that blowing leaves is an improvement.

I like using leaf blower, don't like listening to leaf blower.

The leaves must blow.

One of my neighbours sometimes hoses down her driveway in the pouring rain. Who knows why neighbours do the things they do.

I really hate leaf blowers.

Honestly, it's just fun to blow leaves or snow. It's a mindless puttering activity that lets you improve your home area and be mildly active.

Unfortunately what happens is people's general tendency to think about themselves and nobody else. So they're self-satisfied in their reasons for being out there, not thinking about the dude next door that works nights and can't sleep, and even his construction-grade noise headphones don't help. Or the dude that just wants to listen to jazz quietly.

The leaf blower people are well-meaning people with mild mental illness who are just selfish enough not to realize their home/self care is annoying others. e: A lot of times the guy just needs to get the F away from their spouse. I've lived near leaf blower people and they're invariably older married (sometimes retired) men. Never women.

My neighbor will blow them into my driveway (which is higher than his so it's a never ending battle) and then he'll walk between my house and the house on his other side blowing leaves to the other side of the street. He wastes so much gas every day, I would find it funny if it weren't infuriating. Like, who the heck even buys gas leaf blowers anymore?

Are you in IL? I just saw my neighbor doing that, but he has dementia. I think there are to many people who want a manicured lawn. Personally I don't see why so many people like that.

As it happens, it's about 10 C (50 F) near me and raining, and I did actually think about using my leaf blower for a very specific purpose: blowing the leaves clear of the road gutters.

I saw outside my window that the autumn leaves formed a dam in the gutter, impounding an amount of water which started diverting onto the asphalt and the sidewalk. From what little I know about road construction, water intrusion is the greater enemy so I didn't want to let the small pond sit there.

In the end, I just picked the leaves up by hand to remove the obstruction. But if I had a lot more streetfront, leaf blower would be the first tool to come to mind. But it would take no more than 10 minutes total.

Making noise.