Before I became a homeowner I often daydreamed about how serene life would be once I had a yard I could call my own, a yard to water and preen and trim, a yard so beautiful that people would drive across four states and yonder to behold its magnificence. I would grow flowers and exotic grasses and I would carve bushes into the shapes of farm animals. People would drive by and remark, “Is that a Boxwood or a cow? I cannot tell the difference THE LIKENESS IS SO CONVINCING.”
Now that we do have a yard of our own I grow flowers, but you can’t see them because they are routinely eaten by surrounding weeds. Last year we planted an exotic grass but it became the urinal for every dog on the street. And the bushes, they look like animals, sick and malnourished ones with skin diseases. If we’re industrious we get around to mowing the lawn about every two weeks, and by we I mean Jon whom I berate for wasting time mowing the lawn when he should be inside watching the kid so I can take a nap.
Home ownership has taken its toll on my delusional glorification of gardening, and now my idea of the perfect lawn is level slab of concrete with perhaps a brick lining or flourish of decorative pavers. One, this would be better for the environment as we would no longer be wasting water on plants and grass that are not indigenous to this part of the country, a region that without human intervention is only capable of sustaining dirt. Two, Jon could watch the kid more often and let me nap. Three, it would provide a lovely contrast to the row of pink plastic flowers our neighbor the taxidermist has stuck in the ground along his driveway. Four, DO I NEED A FOUR? I WANT MORE NAPS.
Part of my hatred of the yard is the fence surrounding it and all the maintenance it requires. With the yard comes the fence and with the fence comes the need for more man power, man power that could be better used in the rubbing of my feet. For two years Jon has done nothing but talk about how he needs to seal the fence to protect it from Utah’s unforgiving winters. He needs to seal it, and he needs to seal it, and he needs to get around to sealing it, and doesn’t the fence need sealing? THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGES ON WHETHER OR NOT JON CAN GET AROUND TO SEALING THE FENCE. I personally never cared about whether or not he sealed the fence, and hoo boy, has there ever been a more glaring piece of evidence that I don’t care about the world or the baby seals.
Two weekends ago Jon saved the world and all its endangered species via our fence and the sealing thereof. Except, he said it would only take an hour, and I was fine with that. My nap could be postponed by an hour, I would give that to the world. But it didn’t take an hour or even two hours. It took two and a half hours and I’m just not that generous. It would have taken longer but he ran out of sealer, so not only did I have to postpone my nap then, I had to postpone it again this past weekend so that he could finish the project. I’ve never met a more selfish fence in my life.
Jon has vetoed all my brilliant yard designs including the best one yet, a sea of gravel with gravel along the edges and gravel where the plants would be. That type of yard wouldn’t even need a fence because who would want to trespass on gravel? It’d get all up in your shoes and you’d end up with gravel in between your toes, and I’m sorry, but you’re not going to be allowed to come to bed with gravel in between your toes.