A hasty rant about my lawn

The BBQ Pit
1

(a) I realize that I have a manual push mower. I am also aware that I have to push it uphill in front of my home. I know that it’s the old fashioned way, that it is work, that it’s not gas powered, that hard work makes me sweat when it’s mid 70’s or higher, and that my appearance may be comical when I am tending to my lawn. It’s a decision I’ve made based on the fact that it’s cheaper, I get exercise, and I can mow my lawn without producing noise or air pollution. Absolutely no comment is needed from neighbors or passerby. NONE. Please do not require me to stop, remove my headphones where a baseball game is being transmitted, to tell me “that ain’t gas,” or “that’s how they used to do it,” or whatever other dumb-ass remark you want to make. My lawn is none of your goddamned business. If you want to be neighborly, just smile and wave. I’ll smile and wave back. But don’t engage me in a conversation about my lawn mower. PLEASE. I am so sick of it, I seriously wake up early on Sunday to mow the lawn just so I can avoid dialogue with random people. I honestly don’t see what is so goddamned extraordinary about a push mower.

(b) My lawn is not an ashtray or a garbage can. I don’t know why you can’t throw your trash in the dumpster. Please stop tossing beer bottles, burger king bags, and other detritus on my lawn. Those items don’t disappear. I have to pick them up. I have to pick up your soggy cigarette butts, used band-aids, and all kinds of disgusting crap, and it gets old fast. So perhaps you’ve decided you simply don’t care about your neighbors, or perhaps you are engaging in some kind of class critique of urban landscapes, but whatever your reasons, just take a few goddamned steps and throw your garbage away in the dumpster. This neighborhood is pretty nice, but it is on the cusp of a ghetto, and you push it to the ghetto when you throw garbage around and leave broken dollar-store carts up-ended in snowbanks and otherwise crap it up. If you want to live in a ghetto, move ten blocks south and leave our street clean and pleasant.’

This is a pretty lame rant, I know, but it’s what I mutter to myself every 5-10 days from April through November, every time I pick up and mow my lawn.

2

I so feel you here, skutir–I hate when people throw shit on my lawn!!
I live in a pretty crappy neighborhood, but I try to take care of my yard. I plant flowers and keep it mowed, and it irks me to no end that people walking by just chuck whatever they fucking feel like over my fence. At least leave it on the frickin’ sidewalk so I can use the push broom on it. And the junkies who leave their needles in the alley can suck my ass too. Have some fucking consideration, ya bastids.

As to the push mower–hee hee, I think they’re cute. I have one myself from when I lived in a house with a smaller yard but I don’t use it anymore. The blades had gotten so dull that I had to go over an area three or four times before it was even noticibly shorter. Bummer.

3

You probably could use a T-shirt that says “shut the fuck up & keep walking” on the front and “don’t throw your shit on my lawn” on the back.

Then when you see somebody talking, well just face them and point at your headphones then turn your back and return to mowing.

(I’m into solutions, not problems)

4

skutir, I hear ya. If my total grass area (front and back yard) were smaller, I’d get a push mower for all the reasons you mentioned. And I’m sure I’d get the same dumbass comments. If you wanted to trim your grass with scissors, why in hell should anyone else care? It’s not like you’re asking them to do it.

I’m right there with you every week from April to November, muttering the same stuff about assholes who flick their friggin’ cigarette butts, and other garbage, out their car windows, and it ends up on my lawn or at the curb. The funny part is that I live in the bible belt where most people have their little jesus/bible/rapture stickers on their vehicles. WWYBJD? Would Jesus toss his garbage out the window of his Christler? I don’t think so. Thou shalt not litter, motherfucker.