Sex with a Lawn Bush: How on Earth Did I Miss THIS?

Sex with a Lawn Bush: How on Earth Did I Miss THIS?

– Calico Rudasill, Sssh.com

I readily concede that I’m a bit of a “space cadet” to use a term that dates me – and incorrectly leads my niece to call me a “Boomer”. (For the thousandth time kiddo, Boomers stopped being born in the mid-60s; the world wasn’t blessed with my delightful presence until 1970.)

Still, there are areas of life in which I expect more from myself sloppiness and an unacceptable level of inattention or incompetence. Those may be my defining traits when I’m in the kitchen, but when I’m doing my real job – which is, generally, finding dumb stuff on the internet to make fun of – I hold myself to a higher standard.

I get especially angry with myself when I miss things that are directly in my wheelhouse – namely, dumb sex-and-porn-related stuff on the internet. And that’s why this morning, I’m absolute fuming at myself. “How,” I keep asking myself, “did I miss THIS?”

Just Like Covid, He’s Gone Viral Again

Let me back up a bit. Or maybe jump ahead? Either way, I should explain how Keith Tyssen’s topiary work landed on my radar here in 2022. Yesterday morning, a friend who knows I’m always on the lookout for stuff like this texted me a link to a LittleThings.com post titled “84-Year-Old Man Has A Message For Vandals Who Keep Fornicating With His Woman-Shaped Shrub.”

Now, I can’t explain why LittleThings is just now posting something sourced from a 2018 Buzzfeed post, but I can say I’m glad they did. As much as I hate that I missed this story the first time it went viral, I’d rather be scratching my over that fact than never have encountered quotes like this:

“She’d been manipulated in the night by some drunken lout and I thought she looked rather despairing, so I took this plastic white string of beads and I put it around her neck to boost her morale.”

Don’t tell me, Keith, let me guess: Giving the hedge a literal pearl necklace didn’t deter those “drunken louts” from wanting to give her a metaphorical one, did it?

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things… In Our Front Yards, Bushes That Look Like Naked Women

As much as I get a chuckle from visualizing drunken Sheffield United fans (Sheffield Wednesday fans would never do so such a thing, I’m sure) getting involved in erotic entanglement with a woman-shaped shrub, I do feel Keith’s pain. Topiary is hard, exacting work – and Keith has clearly put a lot of work into this hedge.

“It makes me a bit annoyed that people are so careless or unintelligent,” Keith said. “I get upset when someone just carelessly messed a thing about, a work of art, because they’re ignorant and they don’t know what they’re messing about.”

Honestly, Keith, I don’t think the problem is that they don’t know what they’re messing about; the problem is that they don’t care what they’re messing about. (And that pearl necklace probably isn’t helping.)

“No Trespassing” Just Isn’t Strong Enough

I’m a solutions person – by which I mean I have consumed many ‘solutions’ over the year, most of them involving vodka and some manner of fruit juice. But I’m also a person who likes to offer solutions of another kind, helping people address their vexing problems.

If Keith is still having this problem, four years on from the first time he went viral and 12 years since he first crafted the bush, I suppose he could put up a sign, like “NO FUCKING THE BUSH”. Or, if he wants something more attention-grabbing that speaks a language more likely to resonate with those naughty neighborhood drunks, perhaps “BEWARE OF THORNY VAG, YOU WANKERS.”

People often ignore signs, of course, so maybe a stronger measure is required. Given the hedge’s shape, this is an ideal context for a booby trap, after all…