I have a pretty good life. I really can’t complain about much, but I will anyway. We have a nice house. We don’t have to scrimp and save for food or other basic needs. We get to take nice, but not extravagant, vacations. But things could be so much better.

I blame my wife. Well, not her personally, but her generosity and kind heart. They’re bringing me down.

Maria loves to garden. She spends as much free time as possible out in the yard, usually just puttering.

I am thankful for that. Our garden looks wonderful. If I had to take on that responsibility, the entire thing would be paved over. Or turned into AstroTurf. As cool as that sounds, it wouldn’t look very good.

The problem is that we don’t have enough of a yard to keep Maria occupied. That’s right. She cheats on our garden to keep herself happy.

Everything started innocently. She gave advice and chose some plants for one friend. I could handle that. My wife’s goodness is one of the things I love most about her.

Then she mapped out a vegetable garden for her mother. Then another friend asked. And another. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

I don’t mind that she shares her skills with others, but we could be making money off of this.

Maria won’t have any of that. She sees this as an outlet. I see it as a business opportunity.

The clock should start ticking the second they ask her for help. She needs an egg timer for all her trips to local garden centers. She needs to log all the minutes she spends at home perusing her garden books for the right flowers to make someone else’s yard look good.

Doesn’t she realize that we only have one of our televisions hooked up to TiVo? And I have to get by on a two-year-old laptop.

She says she can’t do it. The only thing she accepts money for is some of the plants she buys. I think she should convince people that each pot costs $250.

Even that might not cut it. Sometimes she doesn’t even buy new flowers. She takes some of her own and “splits” them to give the new garden a good start.

That has to be worth something. We only have two cars for Pete’s sake.

If Maria’s generosity continues to spread, she might try and put Bridget to work for free. Even though she hasn’t turned 5 yet, Bridget has already figured out that we’re taking advantage of her when we ask her to get something for us from the other room. She told Maria that getting a soda from the refrigerator was like having a dog fetch something.

If things keep going at this pace, she might never get me a beer again. I don’t know if I can handle that.

And we know that that beer won’t be a premium brew because we’re going to the poorhouse with all this free labor heading out the door.