I lose this year's annual grass cutting contest

(675 words)

Spring is when Mother Nature puts on her makeup, all purple, scarlet, pink and green. But the dominant color at my yard Sunday was yellow. Like a chicken.

Or a really big man peep.

I cut the grass — and it wasn’t even waist high. 

Regular readers are aware of my annual competition with my old buddy Paul to see which of us can be the last to cut our respective lawns.

We do it for the environment, for the inspiration and because, gee, not cutting the grass gives us more free time to watch things like major league baseball about four months before major league baseball games become even marginally meaningful.

I talked to one friend who’s already mowed his lawn 10 times. The tally proves he doesn’t own his home; his home owns him.

Me, I cut my grass just nine times all last year. I scrawl detailed records of each mow on the hood of my John Deere. The records I turn in to the IRS are less precise.

This is the first time I’ve cut my grass in April since I began keeping records. I’m sick over it. The irony — tragedy, really — is if I could have held out another 12 hours I’m sure I could have made it to May 15. The forecast calls for 10 straight days of weather too crappy to mow.

Sunday’s weather provided a window where I’d run out of excuses to avoid the first cut.

The only thing higher than my capitulation is my shame. Both now tower above my lawn.

I in 2014 set the record for latest cut. It was May 28.

Making to nearly June without having cut the grass was a revelation. I believe if I could have made it another week or two I could have bridged a point where the summer elements would have begun to kill the lawn before it needed cutting.

But with global celebrity within my grasp, I caved.

People think this is a lark, but there’s tremendous pressure to conform. It comes from neighbors, society and especially from family. My daughters began their annual pleading in mid-March when warming suns began to coax the tendrils skyward.

“Please, Daddy, cut the grass! It’s embarrassing. We look like the neighborhood hillbillies!”

Now, I love my daughters.

But I also love my planet.

Paul and I are at the vanguard of a movement that believes obsessive lawn care is bad for the environment. It wastes water, fuel, pollutes the air and kills tiny native woodland creatures.

And it sometimes kills hapless human mower operators.

Paul, a news reporter, spends part of each day, I guess, researching fatal lawn mower accidents from around the globe. He sends me the links to encourage me to stay true and stay off the mower.

It’s great having a buddy who cares!

It is a true movement. There are already stories popping up like weeds — I’m at peace with weeds, too — about anal retentive towns pestering home owners to cut their grass. 

I love being part of a movement where key participants remain stationary.

Sure, a well-manicured lawn looks nice, but so does — speaking of great grass — a happy hippie meadow.

It’s only a gentleman’s bet. Some have suggested we wager, but we think that would diminish our environmental altruism. We do it for the love of the game.

So I’ve lost this round.

Or have I? Perhaps we should factor in our excuses. Paul works a full-time job. He has little time to mow.

Having not had a job since 1992, I have no excuses. Such audacity should be a factor. And I’ll bet I cut fewer times over-all than him. 

So many elements. We need a system.

A Sabermetrics for couch potatoes!

But today it is his turn to gloat. I can anticipate his every taunt. He’ll say I’m gutless, a coward, that I couldn’t take the pressure. And he’ll be correct.

It’s one of those rare instances when cutting it proves a man can no longer cut it.

Related …

Victory lap in Mow-Town

I may never cut my grass again

Reduce deficits: grow grass (not that kind)

Growing concerns about grass/toenails

My neighbor/my Deere

The grass mowing contest is already over

(715 words)

I’ve been hesitant to share this news because I know it’s bound to disappoint fellow idlers who look upon me and my buddy as the Frazier-Ali of laziness, two heavyweights when it came to avoiding lightweight work.

Our competition was heated, but never bitter.

We never come to blows because we never come to mows.

Yes, it’s that time of year when Paul and I engage in our contest to see who can be the last to mow his lawn.

It’s been going on for 8 years. We’re now tied 4-4.

I have it all marked down on the hood of my trusty John Deere. I have all the dates of my first cuts and the number of times I cut.

For those of you scoring at home, I’m on a roll. I’ve won the last three springs. 

My HOF year was ’14 when I was like the ’27 Yankees, known for mowing down opponents. The only difference between me, Ruth, Gehrig and the gang was I didn’t mow shit.

I didn’t cut my grass that spring until May 28 and wound up doing it just nine times the entire summer.

By contrast, many of my neighbors have cut their grass nine times the last three weeks.

Think of the leisure time they’ve lost, the recreations they’ve missed, the gas they’ve wasted, and all the petrodollars they’d funneled into the pockets of those nasty Saudi schools where the boys are taught to hate beer-bellied patriots like Paul and I.

And I’m just guessing that part about Saudi robes having pockets. For all I know they use fanny packs.

But this year something shifted. My victory seems hollow.

Paul piked.

He says he got a new mower and was too eager to try it out to endure the competition.

I knew he was lying. There are plenty of other lawns in the neighborhood he could have mowed. I think, too, he has some shag carpet in his basement that’s looking dated.

He knows all this. In fact, one year he won because his anal neighbor got so fed up with the unsightliness of his lawn, he cut it himself.

It was controversial. True, he hadn’t cut his own lawn, hadn’t paid anyone to cut it for him or hadn’t adopted a pet goat.

All he’d done was hide behind the curtain and cackle as the goody-goody spent 90-minutes cutting his grass because it was so unsightly.

It was brilliant.

That’s why this year’s victory seems so hollow.

It’s like something special has gone away. Been mowed down to be precise.

He told me he’d cut his grass in April. April!

It was a complete capitulation.

I mercilessly berated him and reminded him of all the people he’d let down.

What I didn’t say was this was the year I was going to throw in the towel.

Like him I suspect, I just didn’t have the stomach for it.

So I cut mine May 5, the earliest ever recorded for me.

The pressure was just too great. I’d go the grocery store and see grown men with admirational tears in their eyes. They’d ask if I’d cut it yet. I’d tell them, no, I was still holding out. They’d high-five me.

To extend the grassy metaphor, I was the stem and they were rooting for me.

But I faced the opposite pressure at home every day. The kids were complaining about losing the dog when they let him out to wee.

Worse, I realize how unwise it is for a man in my precarious position to antagonize a wife already suspicious of my inability to sustain our family.

After all, I’m the guy who when she asks where I go in the morning says, “Off to work!” And then spends the day composing this stupid godforsaken deadbeat blog.

I could see her one day leaving me a note saying she’d left me for another man, one with a neatly trimmed lawn.

It’d be a rare occurrence of a husband getting a Dear John letter over a John Deere situation.

Funny thing is, I know what we do is inspiring to many men. They think Paul and I are really onto something.

Oh, well. The grass is always greener.

And now it’s also shorter.

Related …

I may never cut my grass again

Reduce deficits: grow grass (not that kind)

Victory lap in Mow-town!

My neighbor, my Deere

Growing concerns about grass, toenails