Spring is coming in fits and starts. One day it’ll be 70 degrees, the next it’ll rain, and the next it’ll snow. The sky hangs low day in and day out with thick gray clouds that reach their damp fingers into my neck, my hip, my foot, my mood. But my plight pales in comparison with the poor earth worms’ worries.

Yesterday as I went to my car I had to step carefully, picking my way through worms struggling away from their water-logged holes. How could they know they were stretching toward the opposite fate? How could they know that the pavement would fry them as soon as the rains stopped?

Unable to watch them reaching toward certain death, I started collecting them and placing them on higher ground, away from puddles and asphalt. Worm after worm protested in terror as I picked it up, and then it’d wriggle away as soon as it hit the moist earth. But there were too many. I could have spent all day rescuing worms just from my driveway. So I finally satisfied myself that I had cleared away the worms that had been in my car’s direct path and then drove away to work, trying all the while not to think of all the worms littering the streets between myself and my office.

And the rains have continued. Now the whole town smells of spring, moist earth, and crushed worms.

Our new apartment manager, Mr. Fonts&Colors (any guesses what his memos look like?), has decided that it will be easier on everyone if he restricts parking in our parking lots to residents only. Aparently, they’ve had trouble with a couple of families either storing friends’ cars on our lots, or letting other people live with them and park in the parking lot, or something similar.

So this morning I had to go during the newly restricted office hours (seriously? you don’t open until 10? Do you think most of your residents don’t have jobs?) and sign several papers in order to receive my brand new parking permit. He had to take down my car information (which, by the way, I’ve supplied three prior times… apparently record keeping is not as fun as font-full and colorful memo creation) and file my signature and permit number and various other things with all the other things on file about me there.

All of this record generation and file reorganization gave me ample time to contemplate the ironic reasoning behind these extreme new procedures. Rather than talk to these few offenders, Fonts&Colors has made us all register our cars and receive permits to park in front of our buildings. He will now hire parking attendants who, beginning next month, will circulate the parking lots keeping an eagle eye out for non-permitted cars and promptly calling to have these cars towed. He will also issue visitor permits to residents who, heaven forbid, have people in their lives who like them enough to come visit. And because I caused a stink, he will also give me my very own temporary permits to hand out to my weekly dinner guests.

That sounds like less work than talking a couple of residents. Totally worth it.

I did it. I survived my first 20-minute workout (which was actually more like 25 minutes because I had to read instructions and stuff before each exercise).

Now I can hardly lift my arms.

I hope you’re happy.