Green green grass of home

I laid on the couch so long watching sports this afternoon I was in danger of getting bed sores, so I finally decided to get off my lazy butt and go cut the grass.

We don’t “mow the lawn” where I come from, we cut the grass. And I actually enjoy doing it. It’s good exercise, and it has given me an incredibly sexy farmer’s tan. I suppose I could do it with my shirt off, but I’d have to sell tickets to all the ladies in the neighborhood.

Stop laughing.

My grandmother, who just turned 97, told me not long ago that she hated it when she finally got too old to cut her own grass, because she liked the feeling of accomplishment she always got when she finished. She’s right. I can go to work and sit in meetings and listen to conference calls all day and go home feeling like I didn’t really do a durned thing.

But when I finish cutting the grass, I can stand there and gaze at it proudly, admiring the neatly-cut lines, the smooth surface of the grass, and my chest swells with pride. Michelangelo probably felt the same way when he finished painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The difference is, he didn’t have to do it again one week later.

I take a lot of pride in how my yard looks, and I tend to think unfavorably about a man who lets his get to looking bad. There are many such people in my own neighborhood, including my next door neighbor, who is either agoraphobic or allergic to the sun. His grass gets so high, you could hide bowling balls in there.

Then there are the neighbors up the street who do cut the grass, except for the patch under the car that has been sitting in their front yard for, oh, two months. Perhaps this is a custom in their home country, along with leaving the Christmas decorations up past Valentine’s Day.

I use a push mower, since my yard isn’t all that big, but it makes me feel like less of a man, because a real man needs a good riding lawn mower. I recall the first time my dad let me cut the grass on our riding mower. I felt all grown up, and it was like I was driving a car, except it only went about 3 miles per hour. It was a thrill to get up on that thing and go around the yard.

Then we moved to the country, and the size of our yard grew exponentially. My mother always said my daddy had “taken in too much yard,” and she was right. It took a good three hours to cut that grass, even on a souped-up mini tractor with a blade attachment. The thrill was gone.

I do about 90 percent of the grass-cutting at my house, occasionally “allowing” my son to help out. My wife never cuts the grass, nor do I want her to. I have a few firmly-held principles, and one of them is you don’t let your woman cut the grass. This may be sexist of me, but she’s never complained.

It’s not that I don’t think she could handle it, I just don’t believe in it. Now, occasionally, when you’re riding through the country, you’ll see a redneck woman up on a riding lawn mower wearing her Rebel flag bikini, and I suppose that’s all right. But for the most part, it should be a man’s job. I will let her blow the clippings off the driveway once in awhile. Never let it be said I’m not magnanimous.

I do some of my best thinking when I’m out there cutting the grass. I was lost deep in thought one day several years ago, and didn’t realize I had just run the mower over a yellow jackets’ nest in the ground on the side of the house. About 20 stings later, I hopped back outside, cranked her up and finished the job.

Can’t have the neighbors thinking bad about me, you know.