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Broke Wife, Big City
The grass is
always shorter
By Aprill Brandon
There are a lot of things that suck when you are a teenager. School.
Acne. Everyone over the age of 30 constantly asking you “so, you got a
boyfriend yet?” (Actually no, Aunt Linda, I don’t. I currently look
like the love child of Cory Matthews* and a pizza, so my dance card is
pretty empty at the moment.)
But perhaps one of the most universal sucky things about teenagehood is
being forced to mow the lawn.
Now, in the grand scheme of large-scale human drama and important
historical events, I realize this doesn’t rate that high. But I also
think that this is not discussed nearly enough in our daily
lives.
Oh, how I dreaded mowing the lawn. There aren’t enough eyeroll emojis
in the world to express how much my teenaged-self loathed this
particular domestic torture. In fact, I’m pretty sure I wrote an essay
in English class comparing it to child abuse and detailing the various
child labor laws it clearly violated (which received a very respectable
C-).
Now, thanks to the laws of retrospection requiring me to exaggerate
everything from the past, I can confidently tell you I had to mow our
five acres of lawn in 100 degree heat every weekend using the world’s
most ancient push mower.
(However, the law of Maria, my mother, requires me to add this text she
sent me after reading my first draft: “Oh, for crying out loud, Aprill,
it was 1.5 acres in Ohio and you were SUPPOSED to do it every weekend
but didn’t and it was only the second most ancient push mower in the
world. Also, did you get those cookies I sent you?).
So you can imagine my relief when I grew up and moved out and became a
proud renter at the mercy of a series of benignly neglectful landlords
who were now solely in charge of lawn care and occasionally even
remembered to do said lawn care. I’d wake up, go to work, come back
home and magically the grass would be cut.
Yup. The mow-less life has been pretty suh-weet, indeed.
Or, at least it WAS. Until a few years ago when our neighbors hired the
most thorough lawn care guy in the world.
I don’t know who this man is. Or what his story is. All I know is it
takes him three hours to cut a patch of grass the size of my living
room.
First is the weed whacker. For the non-existent weeds. Then the lawn
mower. Which just goes round and round and round in an endless loop
like he’s cutting grass made of diamonds. Then the leaf blower. For the
non-existent leaves.
There are no bushes that need trimmed. No trees to maneuver around.
Just a square backyard. That apparently needs HOURS of work. AND I
CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.
But, Aprill, I hear you ask, why does this bother you so much? The lawn
man is just trying to make an honest living.
And I get it. I do. You’re right. But the sound, you guys. THE SOUND.
It travels right through my windows every summer (and most of fall),
boring into my skull, even drowning out the whiny cries of my children.
For THREE hours straight.
Even if I shut the windows, the sound creeps in. It got so bad one day
that I almost went out there with a pair of our dull scissors because I
was pretty sure I could get the job done quicker trimming it that way.
AND THE WHOLE THING JUST MAKES ME SUPER CRANKY.
Although, if I’m being completely honest, I think the real reason this
situation gets me so riled up is that I have never done anything in my
life as thoroughly and carefully as this guy does every week with my
neighbor’s puny lawn. This puny, tiny yard that he lovingly and
passionately takes care of over and over, never wavering in his
devotion.
My writing, my marriage, even my parenting has been half-assed at best
compared to this guy. And, of course, my own brief career in the lawn
trimming arts.
So, I think we can all agree he is a jerk.
*Ben Savage from the ‘90’s sitcom “Boy Meets World” for my younger
readers...put down your YouTubes and watch some good ‘ol fashioned TV,
you cretins.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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