My Homelife is Straight out of Martha Stewart: I'm from California and this makes me dumb lawnmowers are complicated
by melissalion
21 comments
Easy Melissa Mammal
In wordpress, you get these little ads that say you can get a personalized URL for just $15. And they give you a sample URL. Today, mine was easymelissamammal.com. I’m a little offended, but I’ve been called worse.
We haven’t checked in with the lawn in a long time. And it is still not mowed. I know, you’re shocked. Well, cut me a bit of slack, ‘kay, I write books n’ shit, isn’t that enough, WORLD? Here’s what happened: we tried to puzzle through Ken’s comment and had no idea what a single part was that he was describing, and then we decided to take it to the shop for a tune up and for a guy who knows something about things to touch it with a wrench or wave a sparkly wand over it to make it work or whatever people do who own tools and have a sense of machines and life and are blue collar — something we Californians scorn until we need to do something useful.
So the day we’re going to take it to the shop, they close at six, and it was 6:15. And then they are closed the next day. And so we take it the following day. Won’t be ready for a week. A week later, Saturday, I call to pay for it over the phone so Steve can grab it on his way home. They don’t take payment over the phone. So I say okay, and I bake some cookies and do some other things that I can’t remember and then I head over there to grab it. Well, they are closed, in fact, they close at 2:30 on Saturdays and it was 2:48. Fucking cookies. But they’re closed on Sundays all day.
Saturday, our next door neighbor is out there mowing his lawn, and our neighbors are the nicest people in the world, and I send Steve over there with some cookies to tell them the whole lawn mower saga and we’ll have it taken care of on Monday. They laugh it off.
Sunday rolls around and I do my usual thing of dashing in and out of the house because I don’t want to see any of our neighbors because I’m sure they hate us 1) because we’re from California and 2) because we’re from California and don’t know shit about the maintenance of a house.
But, I won’t give up. I decide yesterday that Arch and I will go on the world’s longest bike ride to go buy plants at the organic nursery because I’m fucking cheap and don’t want to buy gas all about cutting back on my fossil fuel consumption. And along the bike ride I was thinking what I’ve been thinking for the past week: “oh my god, I’m going to California where I will see dear friends and people I haven’t seen in a long time and DO I LOOK GOOD ENOUGH? I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOON’T!” The bike ride, in total, was like ten miles. And so I arrive home, tired and hot and hungry and tired and feeling not great in my brain, when a woman in a Mercedes pulls up and screams out her car window, “Your lawn looks like crap. Cut your fucking lawn.” And then drives away.
And I think a few things: when was the last time I saw a Mercedes in St. John’s? That woman is very unhappy. Who the fuck yells things out car windows. And finally, SHE. IS. TOTALLY. RIGHT.
So I start to cry and I call Steve at work to blame him to share my feelings of embarrassment and disappointment. And to ask the all important question: how did both of our parents instill nary a shred of anything resembling practical skills. And how is that we are both in our 30’s and neither of us have ever mowed a lawn.
To make matters worse, the woman in the Mercedes was visiting with our across the way neighbors who are eleventy-hundred years old. And the husband still mows his lawn every single weekend. They’re so old, that they came over when we first moved in to share two things: 1) they watched our house being built (our house was built in 1954) 2) The previous owner had such lovely taste, and gee, it looks…different…in here without the wood paneling.
I can’t exactly go over to the old people’s house because I don’t believe in yelling at old people, and yet, I was crying and didn’t think I could handle the situation without tears and passive aggressively blaming other people for our shitty looking lawn.
I tell Steve on the phone, “bring them some cookies, and you tell them that we don’t know anything about lawns and houses and shit and that at any point they could have come over and offered some helpful advice about things instead of letting some douche bag yell at me when I’m hungry and tired and feeling like a fat cow. AND ARCHER BROKE HIS LEG SO THEY CAN CUT US SOME SLACK. Okay, say that OKAY!”
So Steve comes home and grabs the cookies and goes over there. And Steve is really, really good in situations like this. He might not know shit about lawns, but he knows how to assuage angry people, which in my book, is way better than knowing how to mow a lawn.
Here’s what I’m trying to say, Internets: I’m picking up the lawn mower today. And the lawn will be nice and tidy by 6pm today. Okay, now get off my fucking back. And if anyone knows anyone in St. John’s who lives by us, if you could just pass that message along. It’s way cheaper than buying a sign and draping across my house.
Melissa, we don’t have grass. We have dirt right now. I’d give anything for grass, or too much grass, or burned grass…anything.
But Ken does know what he’s talking about, so I’d listen to him.
And that lady in the Mercedes can suck it. What a bitch.
I have to give the lady in the Mercedes some dap, because although I’m sad that it happened to you, it was pretty fucking funny that she said that.
No. Fuck that woman. FUCK HER.
I am quite sure she has never, not ever ONCE, mowed her own lawn.
FUUUUCK HER.
Man, some people can be real assholes. You’re right that woman must be very unhappy. Let’s just take a moment and feel sorry for her…and then go key her car.
You are minimizing your carbon footprint by reducing the amount of times you cut your grass and letting grass grow which does something good that I can’t remember right now because I don’t have grass.
I don’t know if any of the above is true, but if it makes you better to think that, go right ahead.
As for the old lady? Throw rocks at her car and then run hide behind the house.
Ken, do you have any suggestions for my bare assed metal terrace? It has two dead plants and two plants trying to commit suicide by jumping off the ledge.
You need a Walter. Walter is our next door neighbor who mows our front yard for us when he mows his. He does this because we entertain his wife and I occasionally cook for him. I’ll send him over–but you must make him lasagna and cheesecake.
Well fuck. If you saw my lawn, you’d stop your crying and send that woman in the Mercedes over to see it. She’d get off your back right quick! Oy.
dude our yard looks terrible. We called someone to see how much it would cost to fix it all and he said…$3000
we said fuck you.
In San Diego I was one of three families on our street who 1) rented and 2) was not a member of the homeowner’s association. Those upper-middle class homes were sparkling. Our house, well, we rented and did not own a mower or a garden hose. I was home alone with the fireman came over and knocked on our door because someone in the neighborhood had reported our weed filled, knee high, dead, front lawn as a fire hazard.
This weekend we had someone come and cut our knee high lawn (things never change) who told us that when he had a full time job (he is currently unemployed and cutting people’s lawns) HE still found time to mow his lawn EVERY week. This is after it took him 2 hours to cut half of our lawn.
Pitch this sign in your front yard: “Caring for my child, spending time with my family, living life, and earning a paycheck is more important to me than lawncare. And if you have so much free time, come on over and mow my lawn, I won’t complain.”
OMG, What a hag! It is SO white trash to scream out a car window.
Don’t worry about your lawn. You are taking care of much more important things in the world than some silly grass.
BTW, we have an electric mower you can borrow anytime you like.
Ya, Mercedes lady is cracking me up! Such passion about your grass. I really like her use of curse words for added emotion. I would have lol’d, but instead I ROFL’ed . OMG
Wait, I think I was really ROFLMAO. k
OK, now that I’ve had time to think about it, I like the idea of the yard sign, but I would change it to say, ‘Caring for my child, spending time with my family, living life, and earning a paycheck are more important to me than lawncare. And if you have so much free time, come on over and mow my lawn. Otherwise fuck off!’
grass is for suckers. drive by our house. ZERO grass in public space. loooow maintenance. Sorta the “socks and sandles” of landscape design
ahem…sandals
Wait, I live in St. Johns.
Anyway, we ripped out all the grass in our front yard and planted perennials. We don’t have to mow them. We do have grass in the back for the dog and kidlettes, but in general we don’t care for things that require weekly maintenance.
And the Mercedes woman… b.i.t.c.h.
Ken: Tried to jack it up per your instructions, but the jack em up thingie was rusted.
Crissy: I hate her too.
Apollo: Thanks, I’ll remember that next time some guy at the gym needs to talk to you while he’s naked.
KK: Yes, fuck her. I want to stab her.
Meg: There has been keying talk.
Dingo: The oxygen of Portland is cleaner because of my lawn. Thank you for pointing that out.
RSG: Done.
Traci: Maybe you can send me your google earth coordinates so I can print them out and put them on a sign.
Andie: Very good. 3000 is toooo much.
Bold: God, we were in the condos in La Jolla Village, seriously, same thing or what! If you didn’t own one of those houses off Governor, you weren’t shit in that neighborhood. Thank god we reconnected.
Mrs MC: Thank you, we might take you up on that.
Brew: I guess I should be glad that strangers care about me as much as I believe they should.
Mrs MC: The fuck off would be bright red, right?
MC: Hiiiiiiiiiii! How are you? I have google apps now because you told me to do that. Oh, and our house came this way, believe me, I hate the lawn and want it gone. That rhymed.
Rachael: I want to do that.
Okay, and here’s the other part. All my inlaws live in San Diego area.. and Orange County.
Yeah, let’s rip out your lawn and make snarky comments to the neighbors.
easymelissamammal.com is the best website name I’ve ever heard. It makes me “laugh aloud”
*taps glass* *tink tink* *tink tink* Hellllloooooooo
will email you.
just relax. take it easy. at least you have GRASS growing, and not some arid wasteland of dust and insects.
one tip–jack that mower up as high as it will go, and make your first pass slowly. give it time to cut the grass, and don’t bog it down too much. you’ll have to make a couple of passes on that bad boy until it gets beaten into submission.