My brain is in a million different places right now...Finals week! That time of year that always seems so distant, when school ends and spring starts a new season which I like to call Summer-spring.
Summer-spring is when all students begin to get that lethal disease called I-hate-the-indoors! (I don't care what your age is its a valid feeling for all). This is the magical time of year when the neighborhood lawn competitions start. I've never lived in a "neighborhood" until now, so I now have a chance to observe the icicles melt and friendships freeze all over a weed that is commonly called grass.
According to the "How to be a good neighbor" handbook there are three types of neighbors, thanks to this handbook all competition is mapped out; and I have an advantage I know the Achilles heal of each neighbor! (If you haven't guessed I have plans to slaughter everyone on this block over this "cold war"!)
There are three types of neighbors in this world. Honeymooners (aka the retired couple that posses a RV) These can be the single most devastating enemy. They give you cookies (This is a war tactic, its used to take your guard off. Little did you know that they poisoned those cookies and while your sick they're on an Amazon safari killing all of their dandelions!) and have an entire militia of grandchildren that have been breed for the single purpose of winning this war. While these pieces of ancient history can be devastating they also can be completely harmless. You might have the active ones but there are also the senior home escapees that can't really do any thing except continue to strangle you with the velvet glove of love and poisoned cookies. Whats the blind spot for the Honeymooners? Easy. Fruit cake! Yes, the one thing they can't resist but its so dense that our Honeymooners will be feeling sluggish for days after the first fatal bite. With the grandchildren nursing their disabled grandparents you begin to make up for lost time (Dang those cookies! I think more than that recipe survived WWI). This ends the Honeymooner. (Oh and its best if you shovel their snow during the winter so they don't suspect a thing.)
The second type of neighbor is called the Centipede. The average Mormon family have kids, a bunch of them. The centipede has millions of legs while it has only one head, such is the average Utah family when it comes to the war. The head is usually the Dad who takes pride in his mowed lawn. Having such a fine lawn makes their hearts swell with pride, so much pride that they start having a say that in the flower arrangements and the kids are up early on their Saturday to weed. The Centipede isn't easy to disable you have to know how they think, their schedule, their hobbies and most importantly what their allergic too. (heh heh) One of the easiest ways to disarm the Centipede is to distract its legs (aka the children), if something doesn't have legs or wings than they can't go anywhere; likewise the head of the Centipede. I highly suggest that you have a slip n slid set up every weekend that the kids can visit. The head of the Centipede will still press forward but it wont make as much progress.
The third and final type is the hardest to paralyze. I like to call them "Big buck" buck stands for bucks and lots of it. These are those loaded people that hire everything out. So when the latest mower shows up every villager comes out to look at the competition. The Honeymooners make remarks that really time their memories, the Centipede is memorizing every part of that diamond in the ruff. He's measuring it in his mind, when the operator is gone he even goes and licks it so he can have a real taste of perfection. And the "Big buck" is watching from his window with a smirk on his face and than he returns to his theater where he's spent the day watching the latest movies. To hit Achilles in his heal you have to have a team effort. The Honeymooners offer their "famous" cookies. The Centipede goes to talk machinery with the operator has his legs/children play mechanics with the Lord of mowers. With any luck you can distract, disable, discourage and disengage the "Big bucks" help.
Well that sums up what can be expected this summer. Friendliness is a fake, the idea of every man your brother is sprayed with weed poison. It isn't until the fall when we're all sunburned, have bug bites, almost been annihilated with cookies and lemonade is the Olive branch offered and we all return to our houses still believing that we were better than our neighbor. Snow brings us back together and than it all starts over again.
P. S.
I will win this year! Oh and I fit into the Centipede category....little minds are easy to convince that a perfect lawn is a must.
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