Weclome to the Jungle, Mr. Perfect Lawn!

I live in a neighborhood with some unsavory characters. I was going to use a much worse word to describe them, but do I really want to curse in my opening sentence? Yes I do, but I'm still trying to make somewhat of a good impression here. If you are curious about my word, it begins with an m and there is an f somewhere in the middle.

As I was saying, there are basically two types. The lawn husbands and the clique-y moms. They like to stand at the jungle gym in full make up scrutinizing other mothers like they are at their lockers in high school. Obviously, it is good times coming to the playground to run your manic children and then have to worry about how hideous your outfit is and how unzombie-like your children are. It's whispers and discreet pointing and lots of hair flipping. I love it, I love living here.

This post isn't about the moms though, it's about the dads. The dads that are overly concerned with their lawns. Since we all live in identical town homes, you can lay in your lawn and touch the sidewalk. They are postage stamp size and yet, these lawn husbands spend hours upon hours on their grass. They are mindlessly busy seeding, pulling out huge unattractive patches of grass, watering, aerating with a fork-like contraption, pouring in chemicals, and adding in new dirt. Instead of happy hour at the bar, they are taking magnifying glasses and looking for dandelion sprouts. It's curious, but whatever makes a body happy. We consider our lawn original and organic; full of clover patches like Nature intends.

There is one lawn dude across from me that we've nicknamed Mr. Perfect Lawn. He has the most intensity of any of them. He's also sort of an asshole, screaming at his family at all hours of the day through open windows. Mr. Perfect Lawn has put his house up for sale so that means even more hours spent on that yard, but now he's become concerned with other yards in the neighborhood because they bring down his resale value.

There are two vacant properties next to me, one was abandoned and foreclosed and the other one has owners who are overseas. Their yards have grown especially lush and dense with all kinds of interesting plants. I call it The Jungle and I think it's sort of neat. The kids and the cat like it too. I like seeing how wild it can get and what it's like for a lawn to be completely free. You can imagine though how Mr. Perfect Lawn feels about that hot mess. He apparently had complained to the homeowners association about it. (By the way I signed their check with the "ass" underlined this month just for jollies.) They have done nothing for The Jungle, so he was determined to do something about it.

This weekend I saw him cut across the street with an angry stride and a weed wacker in his hands. I was walking the kids home from the playground. He had stopped some random guy in the street and was gesturing crazily to The Jungle. When I got closer I heard him say something like "This is disgraceful, so ugly. People should do something about this!" and then he rolls his eyes and sneers at me. Apparently, it's my duty to handle the monstrous lawns that are preventing him from selling his home. I can give dirty looks with the best of one so I gave him a small taste and went inside. He ended up doing a few half assed swipes to The Jungle and ruined its special beauty.

I've decided that it's time to trash The Jungle up, just for one day. Bring pride to my beloved trailer park in Georgia. I plan to place an old tire, a trash can, broken lawn furniture, some beer cans and anything else appropriate in those yards. I will make a flyer to paste over Mr. Perfect Lawn's for sale sign stating that if they like that house, they should really check out the two across the way.