The Mystery of The Lawn People
Will we make a bundle of loot when we dig up the secret of lawn utopia, or is something sinister going on?
Before I begin, there are three things you need to know:
1. This story was written with no actual harm done to any animal
2. Much of what I report is absolutely true, but some of it is made up. You decide which parts are which.
3. I am blaming 2 Medium writers featured in Illumination and in other pubs for bringing out this buried malarkey side in me. You two devils ready for an appreciation tag? Sherry McGuinn and P.G. Barnett. In truth, I also give credit and thanks to a whack-o-whack-o unnamed bunch of other writers.
So far, I have not resorted to disguises,
but I am not above that strategy. I have an arsenal of those black plastic glasses with the fake nose and stash attached, Star Wars Storm Trooper masks and even a horse costume.
The horse get-up won’t do. Unless I enlist my partner, MSZ. Which could be a prob because he stands at 6’2” and I am 5’4”. Then again, if he takes the front part, our creature will just be a horsey with a sagging arse.
I digress. Again. My weakness.
To date, no disguises are necessary. MSZ and I have converted our dining table into a library/office and any other use you might consider. All to respect the pan-DAMN-demic stay at home thing.
Yes, true, there is another use for the table, but only at night when the lights are off, and you can’t see through our sheer-but-who-knew curtains.
There is a huge picture window in front of said table.
That be where we sit, sip coffee, or later in the day, something more substantial. This is our perch of choice while we observe the lawn people. We are sleuths. Amateur private detectives. Ok, private dicks.
I do not think these folks know about our fetish for watching because frankly, they are so focused on lawning, that they never look in our direction.
Oh, sorry. Sidebar again.
Just a question for ya, reader. Little survey. Hope you don’t mind, but it’s important to Zee and me. Re: my drinking something more substantial later in the day comment.
All this staying home has caused extra enjoyment of the red vino at dinner time. And btw, bragging here, I am quite the chef. Do you think we should cut back and stretch a bottle of good stuff over two nights of dinners? I mean, do the math on the number of days we stay and eat at home, both previous and anticipated. All due to the nasty virus-related quarantine.
We found the perfect wine delivery service. But seriously, what do you advise? Restraint? I know the WHO ( no, not the Roger Daltrey band gang) has come out with a cautionary bulletin.
More information. I, along with mah squeeze, do go for aggressive power walk/runs before our evening repasts. Social distancing and choosing isolated pathways, always.
Verdict? Plenty of room in comments to say so. Appreciate this, we do. Zee and I groove guidance.
Back to the lawners.
Picture a man, a woman and their, ohhhhh, probably 57-year-old son. They dress up in curated lawn-tender outfits. Most notably, the furry vests. His powder blue. Hers, yes, pink. And Sonny’s well, his garment is tie-dyed. You know, like a t-shirt yet it’s furry, and it’s a vest.
They start out the day, all three of ’em, with long sleeve orange pullover shirts under the vests. By noon, the shirt is nowhere to be seen, and the vests remain as the only item covering their tops. That fur must be itchy or something. We observe a great deal of mid-day wiggling and scratching.
The trio wears the same style of pants. Black. More than a little baggy.
Yet the pants sport zippers. Surrounding the knees. It is so much fun for the Zee and me to eat our PB&J sammiches. All the while, watching Ma, Pa and son go zippity-doo-dah and whisk the pantaloons into even uglier Bermuda shorts.
Feet. Birkenstocks and heavy socks pulled up beyond the knees. Yes, I meant to say: beyond. Theses lawnistas have relatively short limbs.
Someone, most likely Pa, scattered lime green knee pads
all over their front yard. Because… I kid you not. That is how they unearth anything dandelion out of the green carpet, aka their lawn.
Crawling around on all fours till they find the weedy culprit. And…plop. Down on their knees. Then the pick-pick-picking begins.
I know why they are so finicky. These dudes keep a Coleman stove with a boiling pot of water in the middle of their driveway. All the green parts from those D-lion weeds get dumped into that vessel. That’s what the Mom, Dad and kid guzzle back for their lunch.
The Zee and I watch them do it daily. Practical people, our next-door lawn peeps. See, we can learn stuff from them.
A diet of lots of vitamin C, roughage and no waste. Well, of course, they don’t cook the yellow flowers, just the greeny shit. They know what they are doing.
Yet Zee just told me he read something about breading and searing in hot oil, the dandelion flower. Just like zucchini blossoms. Maybe I should pass this along to the lawn people. The son could run an extension cord and presto, hook up a deep fryer.
We watch all this nitpicking very closely. Lawn self-actualization and riches are but a few steps away for the MSZ team.
You ask, will the lawnriettas slip inside their house following that noon meal? That green soup they eat for lunch must make them, um, run? Ha. They have an outhouse in their back yard. So the question asked and answered.
MSZ and I peeked
when we were out the other day for one of our walks. ’Cause no, we cannot see their backyard from our window. Our view is blocked by fences, shrubs, flowers and what have you.
All three of the family go inside for the night around 4 pm to do other crapola in the privacy of their house. We then stealth walk up the length of their driveway and take a closer gander at the rest of the property. We spy the wooden latrine constructed with several entry doors of various sizes. Awwww. Just like the story of the Three Bears, without Goldilocks.
We Snoop-dogs (not the hip hop guy hanging with Martha) peering over the driveway fence never get caught because we wear black watch caps to conceal our, um, watching.
Their lawn, I gotta tell you, is pristine. A work of art. But what do you expect with all the kneeling and pluckin’, and patting the ground these L.P.’s do.
They even set up one of those underground electric fences.
This one works in reverse. Rumor has it these lawnies ( no intended play on the loonie word ) paid a tidy sum to the city wildlife squad. The purpose: to tag all the neighborhood squirrels, skunks, raccoons and rabbits.
These little varmints love to skedaddle across the perfect lawn. The invisible fence swiftly repels them in a backward direction when the line is crossed. Anything to avoid tiny animal footprints on this hallowed stretch of greenery.
I know for a fact, the rumor about the wildlife wearing fence transmitters is true. Because:
#1: The tags they wear are orange, and you can actually see them when the animals whip up their tails to take a pooh.
#2: Some say ( not us, of course) it is a riot to watch those furballs get heaved rearwards when they hit the fence line during a daytime scamper frenzy. That electrical current is strong. It propels the little scamps to the other side of the road. BOING.
The beasties look stunned for less than a nanosecond and then go merrily on their way. No harm, no foul.
Except. When a car just happens to be driving by, at the same time as the fence repels. Then. Ugh. What a mess. Very upsetting. The poor little creature. You know, roadkill of a person-made sort. Fence caused.
Oh, ‘cuse me.
MSZ is nudging me to look out the window. OMG. There is an ASPCA wagon out front. Also a police car.
Yikes, the Lawn people are in handcuffs. Someone is shoving all three of our lawnies into the idling cop cruiser. Oh, I see why.
The city mayor just happens to live a few streets down. I think her Sphynx cat must have wandered away. I see Ms. Mayor cradling Mr. Bigglesworth in her arms while standing on the sidewalk by the lawnsters’ house. The cat looks unharmed, but I think the Mayor just put her foot down. Worried face morphed into a peeved off look. Finally.
The lawn people are mean a-holes. They are not animal friends. Alas, it’s looking hopeless for me and MSZ to learn any personal growth lessons of the lawn variety from their green thumbs.
In fact, we were already planning to report those three to the animal welfare folks. Just didn’t want them to suspect it was us. Not very neighborly.
Aftermath:
The buried electric fence is removed. Gone baby, gone. Good thing. MSZ and I want to be able to keep on spying in the off chance there is still a life enhancement lesson here. Wait. Maybe there is one. In the words of the king:
Don’t Be Cruel.
Suzanne V. Tanner writes all sorts of stuff whenever time permits. Her reinvent your life consulting business vies for much of her time. She also provides services in Side Gig advisory and does contract work on customer retention strategies. Vee finds it challenging to keep her: nose out of a book, hands off of the latest recipe she is testing in the kitchen, feet unglued to some bicycle pedals. This abstention rarely succeeds because her partner-in-crime/love-of-her-life guy is playing the same tune side by side. If you’d like to be in email touch: [email protected]