Leaf blowers now outnumber leaves in Tampa Bay

Statistics gathered from the most recently completed U.S. census indicate that portable leaf-blowing machines outnumber the number of leaves from various plant life in the Tampa Bay area.

“What’s interesting to note here, aside from the fact that the Census Bureau counts things other than people in an effort to justify its own existence, is that no leaves have fallen to the ground locally since 1995”, said Chet Cheddars, a statistical analyst with the University of South Florida Statistical Analysis Department. “We think trees have somehow become aware of the mayhem taking place at ground level and just naturally stopped producing leaves. That means people are using these things to just chase after the same debris that has been lying around for almost 30 years. “

“The only home appliances more abundant and unneeded than leaf blowers in Tampa Bay are guns, which is not a surprise,” he added.

“Are you trying to tell me I don’t need this thing?”, asked Ted Feedwell of St. Petersburg, turning off his Husqvarna Backpack Blower with a 76 cc Engine Displacement that generates a 220mph maximum air speed just long enough to fool his neighbors into thinking he was finally done for the day, a huge mistake on their part. “That’s ridiculous. I’m a homeowner. I’m required to not only have one of these but to run it every Saturday and Sunday morning as well as arbitrarily throughout the week.”

Based on this data, it would appear that the machines only serve two purposes, primarily to push vast quantities of yard waste to other people’s property where it sits until it’s pushed somewhere else, never to be eventually gathered and disposed of. The other being to generate a metric fuck-ton of unnecessary noise, especially on weekend mornings.

“That may seem to be the case, but actually…”, said Cheddars. “No, just kidding. That’s it.”