Lawn care blues

I guess it's safe to say that the whole novelty of moving in has now officially expired. Don't you love how when you first move in, you're so motivated to attack every project in the book (that is, after you unpack everything) from painting to crown molding to landscaping to building elaborate decks? Don't lie--everyone does it.

For example, when we first had our lawn put in, I religiously hand watered it twice a day, walked on the seams to make sure the grass came together (Yeah, passing motorists thought I was a moron), pulled all the little shoots of Johnson grass that would appear, and sifted the bark in the flower bed and around the trees. And all this I did with a smile.

A month later, I can hardly get myself to even go outside and pick up all the stray pop cans, burrito wrappers, and baby diapers that blow from dumpsters and careless immigrant workers. Those semidaily watering habits have now been replaced by semiweekly ones, and as far as I'm concerned the bark can sift itself from now on. Naturally, my wife now wonders what happened to my youthful zeal with the lawn, as she has to literally push me out the door just to turn on the sprinkler (hand watering ...what's hand watering?).

To compound things, one of us (I'm fairly certain it wasn't me) ran over the hose nozzle with the car, flattening it beyond repair and rendering it useless as a sprinkler adapter. Trying to fix it only made me more bitter since I ruined my pliars and my fingers, accidently sat in a fire ant mound, and actually made the hose look worse than it did before. I swear the green gods of lawn care are laughing under their breath as they see me hand water the stupid lawn again.

In short, unless you like flat hoses, ant bites, sore fingers, disappointed wives, and rotten dispositions, don't raise the bar of lawn care performance so ridiculously high.

Either that, or pay somebody ...