As happens every so often around any type of apartment complex, hired landscaping crews will come along to trim the trees, plant new flowers, blow the leaves, spend most of their day on break smoking cigarettes, and eventually they will lay down new mulch. Last Monday was one of those every so often type days.

I came home from work and saw that all of the sickly looking brown mulch had been replaced with a noticeably brighter kind that contrasted brightly to the drab gray color of my apartment building. The smell of the fresh mulch lingered in the air and coated my nostrils with an aroma that smelled faintly of burnt hair and old Chinese food. Now, I’m no mulch expert, but I hoped that maybe they had switched brands to something a little more wood-based. The last time they re-mulched everything, I could have sworn it was made from broken shards of glass. I also hoped that it would rain soon to kill the smell.

The following day my girlfriend took a stroll out to the mailbox and came back with a wild look in her eyes and told me that in her travels she had come across a pile of mulch that was on fire. Being the good person that she is, she alerted the property manager immediately. Regardless of the fact that the property manager didn’t seem to know what to do about it (my first suggestions would have been water or a fire extinguisher), my girl had done her civic duty. Over the course of the next few days there was an epidemic of mulch fires happening all over the complex. Nothing too serious, but in passing you could occasionally spot plumes of smoke rising from the ground around the trees and bushes. Was the Florida sun setting our mulch on fire? Had small volcanoes, which had laid dormant for thousands of years, suddenly opened up? Did we have a mulch arsonist on the loose? These were questions that I could not come up with answers to. At least, none that people would take seriously.

When next it was my turn to get the mail I saw a sign posted on the community bulletin board, where residents usually advertise things for sale, lame apartment events, upcoming yard sales, and personal ads looking for mates in a quarter mile radius. The sign read:

ATTENTION!
(¡ATENCIÓN!)

For the safety of all residents, please do not throw cigarette butts in the mulch. We have had several fires this week. If you see a fire, please call the property manager immediately.


Suddenly I had my explanation for everything. Though it was anticlimactic, it was good to know that we weren’t sitting on a scaled down version of Mount St. Helens. As I prepared to head back toward my apartment it hit me that these fires were actually leaving the door open for something that could really bring the residential community together. I produced a pen from my pocket and went to work on the fire warning sign.

While walking away I passed another resident heading over to pick up their mail. I knew that they would also see the sign, but perhaps they would look at these fires in a different light. After some creative editing the sign now read:

ATTENTION!
(¡ATENCIÓN!)

For the safety of all residents, please do not throw cigarette butts in the mulch. We have had several fires this week. If you see a fire, please call the property manager so that we can organize a killer weenie roast. I’m thinking that if we play our cards right we could also get a drum circle going and Lord knows I haven’t participated in a raging drum circle since my college days. I would ask that we leave the hallucinogenics at home though. Last time we brought hallucinogenics to a drum circle, Alice ended up in a coma and that was a big buzz kill for everyone. Plus, Larry was on some bad shrooms and was never the same after the hospital trip.

PS – Bring stuff so that we can make Smores.
Man, they are soooo good, am I right?

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