I’ve always wondered what those military wives were thinking when they were out scrubbing their driveways. Actually, that isn’t true. I’ve never seen anyone out scrubbing their driveway. We used to know this crazy lady on base who filled brown paper bags with sticks and lined them up in her garage, but even she did not scrub her driveway.
 
Now I do. I scrub my driveway.  I’ve been doing it ever since I got this snippy letter from our new Homeowners Association informing me that I had a “dirty driveway.”  Gasp.
 
Just for the record, I do not have a car up on blocks in my driveway. I am not accepting the ship’s used lube oil for recycling. I am just guilty of having a dinner plate size spot in the driveway.
 
Whoop-dee-ding-dong. It’s a driveway. Cars sit on it. Especially elderly cars like mine that make paying the rent possible.
 
So I crumpled that letter and tossed it away. Right up until the moment I remembered the 162 boxes that we just moved into this house, the pictures hung, the curtains cut up and sewn again to fit these windows. I nipped out there and started scrubbing.
 
“Oooooooh, that Homeowners Association is so strict, isn’t it?” my neighbor said, materializing behind me. “You have to be so, so careful!“
 
I looked up from my oil spot to give her a hard look. How did she know that I’d just got a nastygram? I didn’t remember mentioning this letter to anyone. I didn’t see a copy of the letter posted to my door with a hatchet.
“In case you didn’t know,” she whispered. “That guy in the burgundy truck lurking over there by the bushes is your landlord. They must have notified him, too.”
 
Notified him about what? The incriminating stain on my soul? The mark of Cain hidden in my Home Depot impatiens? The whisper that maybe my lawn isn’t quite green enough for the Good Neighbor Club?
 
These days I’m out on my drive like Lady MacBeth scrub, scrub, scrubbin’ away. I’ve gone out there at night with a big bag of kitty litter and ground it into the drive with my shoe. I’ve dashed out at dawn to sweep up the remainder so they didn’t know I was dumb enough to believe in kitty litter.
 
Short of a jackhammer, I know I’ve done what I can do.  The spot has faded but it has grown until it looks a lot like that new Budweiser commercial. That won’t be acceptable around here. I’m sure that right now my neighbor is clamoring for a punishment just right for the likes of me — three years hard labor seems awfully harsh just for having a driveway.