Yard of the month competition on our street

After cutting a third of the front yard my lawn mower dies.

Sitting on his front porch my next door neighbor is watching.

Grabbing my tools I pull the spark plus, clean it replace it and ... nothing.

He giggles.

I cuss.

There is no real competition on our street for "Yard of Month."

The Cat Lady is our other next door neighbor and her house looks like a garage sale in a rain forest overrun with feral cats.

Apartments across the street from us look like a used car lot with two jet skies, three motorcycles, four cars, a trailer and four giant trash cans in the drive way. (Two of the trash cans are marked "Tybee Recycles" but it doesn't so there are four giant trash cans.")

Directly across from the Cat Lady is a purple house overgrown with sub-Tropical vegetation that may make the roof collapse. The owner spends a lot of time outside gardening in her underwear, shrieking songs to dying tomato plants, doesn't seem to care. A torn tarp over a rusty frame sits beside the purple house as a garage for her purple car with a "Witch Parking" sign and we couldn't agree more.

The only homes on our street in any serious competition for "Yard of the Month" ... if those people ever found our street ... is our neighbors and ours.

We are not close.

He cut his grass yesterday.

I check my lawn mower for gas which is fine, clean the spark plug again, pull the cord and ... nothing ... so I kick it.

Nothing.

"Heeeeyyyy Mike," he says in a sticky, sweet uncaring voice. "You need to borrow our mower?"

There are times in life when you realize that, in spite how much you think we're in charge of things, we really don't control all that much.

For the most part things go right until they suddenly go wrong.

To quote the great Harry Nilsson, "things went good ... things went bad ... things went good ... they went bad ... good ... bad ... goodbadgoodbadgoodbad ..."

No, I don't want to borrow his lawn mower ... Yes I want our grass cut ... I do not want to accept his charity ... I do want to remain in serious competition for "Yard of the Month" ... I can't stand the thought of him telling the neighbors how he saved me so our yard wouldn't look like theirs ...

AAAAARRRRRGGGGG! my soul rages as I raise my hands to Heaven asking "WHY?"

Standing on his porch watching me, coffee cup in one hand, newspaper in the other, he waits.

Surrendering to the powers of the Universe, I hang my head and say, "Thanks. I will."

That's how our grass got cut today.