Mowing grass. I really don’t get the point. Well, I get a lot of little green ones, ha. But I really hate cutting them. 

My hunch is that lawn servitude evolved over time. A cavewoman thought, Oh, clearings are so lovely. What if I gathered a swath of these delectable little plants and rooted them in front of my cave? 

She tell husband, “Grunt, grunt, yowl.” 

Husband respond, “Argh. Grunt, grunt, sigh.”

Then, once one woman had done it, the whole village saw how charming her clearing looked as it lay there adorning the mouth of her cave. Can we have a village of caves? In this article, we can. We can have whatever I write. How about a city of caves?! You’re welcome.

So, true to cultural growth, which one could call communal stupidity, the whole village transplanted clearings to their caves. Then, of course, no one wanted to be that guy who didn’t take care of his patch. He’d probably have rocks thrown at him. So, societal pressure bid humankind to bite, cut, and then mow their lawns. 

And today, if we don’t do our part in this neighborhood sociopathic idiocy by mowing our lawns, we’ll remember. Our ancestral consciousness will reach back through the mists of time to Fred, The-Village-Moron-Who-Didn’t-Trim-His-Clearing-and-Got-Hit-By-Rocks. 

So today as I look at my St. Augustine grass, I scratch my head and wish it’d all just die because is it even a grass? It acts more like a vine, dying in patches, and if it’s kept up, it turns into a very short and wide hedge. Not to mention that if you walk on it, St. Augustine feels like stepping on millions of soft daggers. 

Why mow at all? Other than the threat of flying rocks, why keep up the pretense? Because being shunned can be worse than getting hit by rocks, depending on the size of the rocks. 

I’m dangerously close to becoming Fred because my lawn looks like nuclear fallout compared with Bob’s neat hedge across the street. Bob (He’s totally made up. Please don’t look up where I live.) spends every waking moment delicately weeding, edging with a laser-site, and clipping with Mr. Miyagi-like exactitude. 

Maybe I just don’t like St. Augustine.

I grew up surrounded by soft immaculate greens in Cambridge, England. Mind you, the greenskeeper at Trinity College had no sense of fun: “Oy, who’s been removing the ‘No Walking on the Grass’ signs agin’, eh? You. Yeah, you, the cheeky one with the football. You done it, didn’t ya? You little blighter. Come ‘ere, and I’ll cop ya one.” 

Once, I found a green with football (soccer) goals, so I felt welcome to play. Looking fit in my new footy kit, I laced up my boots and ran out onto the pitch for a kick-about. I was having a jolly good time at it, too, until I saw, silhouetted against the expanse of luxurious fields, the unmistakable form of the groundskeeper. My stomach sank as he approached, waving his arms. It sank further as I deciphered soundbites of the words he was yelling. They weren’t very English words. Now that I think about it, his words were very English, used by Shakespeare, and comprised of one word, on repeat. 

As he yelled, he drew close enough to give me a very good look at the state of English dental hygiene. Not good. Not only did I surmise he must struggle with “Voice Immodulation Syndrome” (True syndrome. Look it up on SNL.), but his face was turning the color of the Queen’s knickers. Oh, I’m a naughty lad, aren’t I? Finally, he summed up all of his Shakespearean one-line-worders with “99 times out of ten, I’d let you play here. But since you didn’t Shakespeare-ing ask me, I’m not going to Shakespeare-ing let you.” 

I thought, Crikey. You obviously didn’t spend much Shakespeare-ing time on maths. Cor’ blimey, you’re saying I get to play here, AND I don’t get to play here? What we have here is a conundrum, one in which I better hoof it, or I’ll be Shakespeare-ing sorry. Shakespeare-ing jobsworth, I thought as hopped off. 

So today I find myself a whole lot older, still keen on playing footy, and still wondering why I should bother spending so much time and money keeping what’s left of my St. Augustine grass alive. If I ever venture to attempt soccer again in my yard, I’ll inevitably stand on one of those spiky weed things, which appeared in lawns during the Spanish Inquisition. I obviously can’t keep up with Bob over there. And heck, I prefer the rugged and healthy thigh-high stuff I see around abandoned homes. 

“Honey, are you going to mow the lawn today or just stand there?”

I tell her that I’ll mow the front today and get the back tomorrow. But secretly, I plan on keeping what I call a mullet lawn for another week. Who looks at the back anyway? 

“Are you planning on cutting the party as well?”

Argh.