I have a new lawn.
Actually, my new lawn has me.
It is obvious that what is planted in my yards is Grass From Hell.
It just keeps growing, growing, growing.
Growing.
Someday they’ll find me lying in it, face down, mower still running, rake clenched in one hand.
It will already be growing over me.
It’s my own fault.
All I’ve wanted for the past two years is a nice lawn.
I think I told someone I’d do anything to have one.
Maybe I told the wrong person.
The landscapers came and planted it Aug. 10.
“It’ll be up in five days and you’ll be cutting it till your blue in the face by the end of August,” one of them said.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Sure I will.”
I turned blue in the face long ago.
I haven’t had time to look in a mirror to see what colour my face is now.
I cut the grass 19 days after it was planted.
Then the landscapers came back and fertilized it.
In the last 16 days, I’ve cut it nine times.
I cut it twice Wednesday.
The cutting and raking took four hours.
Then Friday night, I cut it again.
Woke up Saturday and looked out my window.
The grass had grown so much overnight I could hardly see the lawnmower tracks.
Cut it again.
Also Monday.
And Wednesday.
And Friday.
And Monday.
And now it’s Friday and I’m cutting it as you’re reading this.
I would have cut it Wednesday but it was too wet. I can hear it growing outside my bedroom window at night.
I makes an eerie sound.
As if it’s breathing.
But soon I won’t hear it any more.
Because I’m just going to leave the lawnmower running all the time.
That’ll save the bother of starting it so often.
So far, I’ve raked up eight green garbage bags full of grass clippings.
Dragged them out to the curb for pick up.
Monday night, somebody came by and picked up two of them.
Took them home.
If he likes my grass so much, maybe he’ll buy my house.
It’s a nice place.
Well built.
New roof.
Great lawns.
Price is right.
Includes free lawnmower.
Gas can.
Rake.
And a promise he’ll never see me again.
©1988 Jim Hagarty
