We bought a new house in a real nice neighborhood. The house was perfect except for one important feature—it came with a yard! I do not like yard work, and my wife does not like yard work. I travel all the time, and she works long hours.

One Saturday morning, I got a big idea. “Why don’t we just concrete our front yard?” I thought. When my wife mentioned to a friend I was considering calling the concrete trucks, word spread, and a delegation of concerned neighbors showed up at our front door. It is clearly not a neighborhood with concrete front yards.

“Please, you have to hire Bill,” they pleaded. “Bill does all our yards.”

So Bill was summoned to our house late one afternoon for an “audition.”

Bill arrived in an old pickup truck loaded with garden equipment. Dressed in faded jeans, a “gimme” T-shirt from Miracle Grow, and a sweat-stained cowboy hat, he leaped out of the front seat. Grabbing a stack of pale green index cards, he ran up the sidewalk to ring the doorbell. “These caladiums are getting too much water,” he announced even before introducing himself at the front door.

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