Levels of Domestication

I've resisted, and continue to resist, growing up. The effort is relatively futile as I am married, have a child, house, job, etc. Don't get me wrong, none of the aforementioned are bad things, but sometimes I find myself doing or thinking about something I never really thought would be on my radar. As I mowed the lawn today, an absolutely gorgeous day, I found myself reflecting on my level of domestic integration.

I pulled out the John Deere push mower and did my version of a 'spring tune up.' I'm not gifted mechanically with anything that runs on fuel. I do pretty well with general mechanical skill, but for whatever reason the gas engine skill was clearly a skip generation trait in my gene pool. Short story long, tuning up the mower for me generally involves wiping it clean to bring back the shimmery green lustre of the that green paint job on the deck and calling my father-in-law if anything else looks awry or doesn't work.....so, I dont' really do anything to the mower.

As a well trained and domesticated beast, I find myself obsessing and debating about all that goes into proper lawn care. My lawn is far from the fairways at Augusta, or for that matter the grass at the local school, but I still have this gravitational pull for unobtainable perfection. I will battle the weeds (with below average success), fertilize, and obsess over the care of each of those millions of blades of sweet, green, relatively useless turf. This paternal pride for the lawn finds me today debating how to mow the yard. Efficiency says the horizontal pattern is best, and definitely easiest. However, like those who dress their small dogs in clothes, I want more. Feeling in the zone, I went for the diagonal cut. A majestic diagonal bisection of the property that I can stand on the deck with a cold beer and admire those clean lines left by the precision 5 inch tires of the mower.

After the job was done there was little satisfaction as I dream of the yard I can mow cool patterns into like the big league ball parks. However, I did my best, and the Hoffman turf is maintained for now, and I stand proud. Not unlike the individual who enters their '96 Grand Am in a classic car show......it's not that people don't understand, it's just that they don't care.