Sure, everybody loves the Nelson 360 Degree Pulsating Sprinkler – until it puts you out of a job.

I’ve been landscaping going on 23 years now. Started as a shovel grunt, digging holes and spreading manure. Worked my way up to mower jockey, then pruner, and finally the ‘scaper’s highest aspiration: waterer. I was the best hose man in the Upper Midwest. The work was easy, I had winters off, and nobody minded if I showed up under the influence. As long as the grounds got watered, I lived like a rock star.

But then, this year, the tap ran dry. I was all psyched up for the start of another landscaping season, waiting for the call. The weather got nicer. The phone stayed quiet. Finally I rang up my boss Todd, and he says none of our clients are asking for watering this year. Todd says with the economy all tore up how it is about now, they’re all using the Nelson 360 Degree Pulsating Sprinkler.

They like how you can string a bunch of ‘em together off of one faucet. They like the adjustable sprayer head, the 90-foot spray diameter, the weighted base and stabilizing spikes. Most of all, Todd says they like being able to buy a bunch of them and use them all summer, for what they’d pay me for one day’s watering.

But Todd says he needs a manure guy. So I’m back out here with a shovel, spreading the BS and HS and who-knows-what S, just like I did when I was 19. Here’s the thing, though: these medium-duty sprinklers might be durable, but not durable enough to withstand a well-placed smack with a shovelhead. I figure a few “accidents” like that every week and I’ll be back on the hose by the 4th of July. Nice try, Nelson 360 Degree Pulsating Sprinkler. But you don’t survive 23 years in this business without learning a trick or two.

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