Monday, September 3, 2012

Turf Wars

This may or may not come as a shock, but I grew up in a pretty typical suburban neighborhood, and as normal as it was, with it came all the typical oddities of living in close quarters.  I.e., having neighbors like the rubberneckers, the newlyweds, the ornery old man, and the guy obsessed with caring for his lawn.

This tale is about that last guy.

This man owns a large riding lawnmower with which to mow his less-than-1/3-acre yard.  And when I say large, I don't mean:

I mean:

Photo via CentralParkNYC.org
In his defense, he does own a landscaping business.  This, however, does not excuse the fact that he typically mows the lawn sometimes up to 3 times a day with his giant, rumbling machine of doom.  (And as an aside - for those not acquainted with lawn care - this is actually really bad for the grass.)

Now, I obviously am no longer affected by this, though it unnerves my father to no end, mostly because it's our next-door-neighbor, and being an older, quieter man, the Lai Patriach doesn't much care for the noise of thunderous engines during meals.  In fact, I wouldn't have given the Grass Overlord a passing thought, if the following hadn't happened.

On a ledge near the front door, I spied a wad of dollar bills, just sitting out in the open.  My parents are usually good about leaving money out in the open, so of course, I had to inquire.  When I brought it up, my dad kind of laughed, which is never a comforting response to a situation about money.

Like I mentioned before, my dad is getting on in years and needs help with outdoor chores.  This summer, he had tried to hire someone to mow the lawn for them. 

This is where things get weird. 

When the chap tried to perform the task with which he'd been given, Captain John Deere began berating him, telling him that he was DOING IT WRONG.  Now, I wasn't present for this, and only have my father's word to go on, but apparently Don Weed-o Corleone was so vehement that the hired hand eventually left, without taking his pay.

In my sad, romantic mind, I sincerely hope that showdown went something like this:

Photo via Hemmings Daily
 Or even this:


But, no.  It was probably just a sad, overly-bronzed, slightly overweight man, staring down some hapless guy.

Which brings me to my real point:  What the eff?  Yeah, we all have our passions in life, and we all have our fortes.  Some of us tend to be nagging when it comes to seeing others try to reach the same echelon of greatness we think we've established. 

But sweet holy fricker fracker.  Have we become so desperately bored with life that these are the kinds of things we stoop to fight over?

Until the next.

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