Capitol Hill residents jolted awake this morning to the unmistakable sound of rival leaf blower gangs furiously blowing leaves and trash back and forth over the borders of each other’s treacherous, tree-lined territories.
“This has been escalating all year long, but really reached a fever pitch today when the Pike and Union gangs got up at the crack of dawn to war all morning over seven leaves and what we later found—after all the smoke cleared—was a Dick’s burger wrapper weighed down by a pickle and piece of gum with a lipstick-stained cigarette butt,” said Infinity Apartments resident Shawn Crawford. “We all wish someone would intervene and show them what a broom and a dust pan is, but I guess breaking the cycle of leaf-blower violence just isn’t that easy.”
Leaf-blower gang intervention experts say it’s common for things to heat up between warring neighborhood factions in late summer and early fall, but that doesn’t make it any less disconcerting to wake up to every year.
“What we need are leaf-blower buy-back and here’s a rake programs, but we’re not holding our breath,” said Ted Wilson, a former leaf-blower gang member who has since seen and learned from the error of his ways. “In the meantime, the best we can probably do is try to ask these leaf-blowers and their employers, what’s behind this violence? Are you one of those early morning people who feels the insufferable need to force everyone else into being early morning people too? Who hurt you and how can we get you into therapy?”
As of this afternoon, Capitol Hill residents were being warned their eardrums may soon be getting blown away soon too after a Pike leaf-blower gang leader, known on the streets as Leaf Erickson, posted an ominous note on a telephone pole outside the Comet Tavern: “You think yesterday blew? Wait until Saturday morning! No one sleeps past 5 a.m. until Union gang surrenders!”
