Mulch

Mulch: I had, of course, heard the word, and thought I generally understood its meaning. But it wasn't until I married a gardener that the full impact of what it actually was sank in. 

It turns out to be a gardening-related sinkhole for money. It is a ridiculously expensive thing you buy EVERY YEAR for your garden beds. The mulch people drive up in a dump truck full of the stuff (steaming, if that gives you any hint of what it might be - and smell like), liberally shovel it into your garden beds, and relieve you of something like $1000.

They then drive away laughing because they know that it will DISAPPEAR over the course of the year, forcing you to do it all over again next year! When I first encountered this, I fairly shrieked "You've got to be kidding me!"  Apparently gardeners don't understand what a SANE person could do with $1000 every year. Like, ANYTHING else.

And the smell - I mean, really?