The caretaker watered the lawn two ways. The second way was holding his thumb over the end of the garden hose and spritzing water over a 30 foot distance to wet the grass seed with mulch he had just sprinkled over that bald spot. His Jeep was parked on the lawn and he had not even noticed the realtors truck parked only 50 feet up the driveway. When the realtor and his female assistant stepped out on the front porch and alerted caretaker to their presence in the house he immediately wondered if they had seen him water the lawn the first way and while realtor prattled on about some damn thing caretaker was counting in his head the number of windows on that side of the house he had watered. Eight windows. This was a new era indeed when a man couldn't pull his pants down anywhere he wanted and water the grass anytime he wanted.
It was easy to sneak up on caretaker. He would not make a good spy or bodyguard or any of those characters he watched on programs via his computer that you couldn't sneak up on and were vigilant and could take a bullet in the first half of the show and be playing racquetball in the second half. HIs girlfriend, Bernadette, who lived in New York, 5 hours away, because that was as close as she could stand to be to him some of the time would come down to this barely southern barely farm and remove the hermetic from his lifestyle periodically and she could sneak up on him like it was nobody's business. He would often scream or gasp like a girl when she snuck up on him not that there's anything wrong with that. Bernadette had taken to various method's of announcing her presence while caretaker performed duties, he said duties, on property. The whistle followed by a hello, the bold hello, the quiet just stand there approach, but none of them worked and caretaker in the end was always snuck upon. Who can even guess into what depth he was immersed while being flanked? Refining the nuances between various cupcake recipes perhaps.
Caretaker remembered a contractor he once worked for in the New Orleans area who in mid conversation, outside on a job would quicker than you could react just open his fly and turning only slightly away empty his bladder onto the dirt and sawdust and scrap 2x4s without missing a beat in his instructions or story about him and his pet chickens on the farm he grew up on in Mississippi.
Caretaker would have to be more vigilant, that is all.