I’ve never mowed a lawn. I went almost thirty years having never pushed a mower, cut grass or done any sort of yard work beyond a bit of weeding. I’d say I’m ashamed but the fact the matter is lawn mowers are ungainly, heavy tools and frankly they scare me a bit with all their blustering and vrooming.
My non grass cutting life was going fairly smoothly until I bought a house. Happily this house came with a lawn mower. Unhappily this lawn mower was one of the loud, gas guzzling variety. I allowed it to sit in it’s angry den until one day I arrived home to the following note left by an anonymous neighbour.
“You are an embarrassment to the neighbourhood. Mow your lawn! Even Gladys* did a better job than this. SMARTEN UP!!!!”
For the record Gladys is the eighty year old woman whom I bought the house from. She used a walker. Effectively my gardening skills are inferior to that of the extremely elderly.
So away I went to purchase a push mower, the kind that ran on my own sweat but hopefully not blood. I got the mower home and away I went. The satisfaction was immense and immediate. I discovered that mowing a lawn is like vacuuming but better because the effect is so drastic, one moment your backyard is overrun with weeds, the next it’s a perfectly cultivated, fragrant paradise. I went up the lawn, and back, then turned and went diagonally across it. I swiveled the mower and made a loop-de-loop on the lawn. To finish, I made progressively smaller circles.
A friend who had not witnessed my lawn cutting revelery came to visit on Sunday, by that point the patches I had missed in my erratic fit of yard work were becoming obvious as they seemed to grow by the minute in the sun.
“You’re supposed to mow in a pattern” he said helpfully.
“I did” I answered beaming with pride over my now not so newly cut lawn. “Paisley!”
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those kind enough to gift me a gas guzzling, terrifying lawn mower.
Also for the record, I am the naughty neighbour in the title. Prior to cutting it, my lawn may have looked like something that Indiana Jones would have to take a machete to while trekking through the Amazon in search of a skull, or the death star. I never watched that series of Harrison Ford movies, regardless, I’m sure my lawn made an appearance somewhere.
The Great Unwashed 
I like the way you cut the grass, forget the box pattern and express yourself.
There are no rule to cutting the grass as long as a cold beer is awaiting you 🙂
I think for the good of my neighbours’ wellbeing, I shall cut in a box pattern. In the front yard at the very least.
That took me back. A lawyer I was living with bought a house. He was afraid to mow. When a neighborhood teen arrived at the door asking if we wanted to hire him to cut the grass, Erik said “No.” He was concerned about the liability. A month later the boy crossed over the thigh-high grass and said one word: “Ready?” Erik hired him. Sooo very glad I didn’t marry that doofus.
If only the teens in my neighbourhood were so business driven, I would have hired them immediately.
love paisley, hate mowing love gran
I like paisley lawn mowing.
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Love the paisley response. Perfect.
For the record my lawn cutting was also perfect. Despite what the neighbours claim.
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