Eventually I got out of the Marine Corps. It became clear to me that they didn't really care about landscaping, they were all about invade this and overthrow evil despot that. So I moved back home with big dreams of opening my own landscaping business. Where nobody could tell me what I could landscape, and when. Except the customer, of course. I mean it's their lawn, you have to listen to them.
The problem was, there were a million landscaping companies out there. Everywhere I turned there was a crew of predominantly Mexican workers, raking and mowing and pruning. I tried to get business, but they always had a landscaper that they liked. There was simply no business available... here. But if all the Mexicans who could landscape were here. There must be a shortage of landscapers down in Mexico. Eureka!
I packed up my leaf blower, my mower and my pruning shears and headed south. Good-bye New Mexico, hello regular old Mexico. Hmmm. There was a problem. There seemed to be an appalling lack of lawns. No matter. I would just fix up the yards they did have, you can rake dirt just as easily as grass.
I went to the first door I saw and knocked on the door. I avoided the shotgun blast directed at me and ran back to the truck. I guess they weren't taking solicitors right at the moment. I went to the next house, but I couldn't understand a word that crazy old woman was shouting at me. It's like she was speaking another language, although the machete she was waving around said plenty.
I finally found a kindly policeman who spoke a little English. He explained the Geopolitical events that had led to Mexicans crossing the border to work in America and pointed out the fallacy of my thinking. One, people in Mexico were spending a rather small amount of time in their yards at the moment, what with the bloody gang/drug war going on and all. Two, the majority of Mexicans in Mexico didn't have the need for a landscaper or enough money to pay for a landscaping service. And three, I should give him all my money and my lawn mower or he would throw me in a Mexican prison.