The one you probably shouldn't read....

*I apologize in advance for this blog posting.  It's pointless, in the sense that it literally has no point, but I wrote the damn thing and now I feel obligated to publish it.  Plus I have to go grocery shopping and then I plan on having a few cocktails after that to help me recover from this hideously traumatic day, so I won't have time to write another one.

Go with God, my friends.  

And don't judge me.

Also?  Thanks to my friend Jenifer Stewart for saving me humiliation by pointing out my incorrect spelling of the word "their."  Dear Lord, that would have been catastrophic.

People take their lawn mowing very seriously around here.

Like, very seriously. 

Almost like it's their job, which I know for a fact it isn't.  Because if it was their job, there would be more jobs available for me because everyone else in town would be making their living by mowing their own lawns.

There is a part of me that really hates them for it.

Who would hate someone for mowing their yard, you are probably thinking.

I would, that's who.

It isn't so much the fact that they want tidy yards... I can get on board with that.  Just do it when I'm not home, okay?  I mean seriously... You have 50 square feet of yard.  Why does it take you four hours to mow it?

ON A RIDING MOWER?

I had to mow a yard three times that size when I was a kid, up hill, 10 miles both ways, in the snow.  

WITH A PUSH MOWER.

And then rake it and bag it, because we were so poor we didn't even have a fancy mower with one of those bag thingies that attach to the back that collect all the grass.

And our parents didn't love us enough to get a gardener.  They didn't see any reason why my sister and I couldn't do it.

And even when I listed all the reasons (of which there were many... MANY... most of which involved interfering with my tanning schedule) they still suggested I get my behind out into the back yard and start mowing.

And by "suggested" I mean I didn't have a choice.

Meanwhile, the noise is so fucking irritating that I'm super close to popping a cap in someone's ass, if only I weren't fanatical about gun control and actually owned a sniper rifle.

I do, however, own people who own sniper rifles... ponder, ponder...

One thing I have learned, from all this goddamn lawn mowing, is that those things they're riding on that mow lawns are not called lawn mowers.

Oh no, my friends.

They are garden tractors.

And if you make the mistake of calling it a lawn mower, you will be promptly corrected and then shunned for life, due to your obvious lack of concern for proper lawn care.

You will be stoned to death in the town square for calling it a lawn mower.

And while they're correcting my incorrect assumption that if it mows lawn, it's a lawn mower, all I'm thinking is:

I CAN'T HEAR THE TV OVER YOUR FUCKING GARDEN TRACTOR, YOU ASSHOLES.

Here I am, unemployed, with nothing better to do than DVR countless reruns of Dr. Phil on OWN, and I can't even hear it because from 8 in the morning until 5 in the evening, the morning crew is out trimming the grass with the engine power that is the equivalent of one pissed off teen-age girl that would rather be slathering herself with Tropical Tan and laying by the pool, but who am I to judge?

Then from 5 in the evening until 10 at night, they all haul out their chain saws and build shit.

Or maybe they're weed eating, I don't know.  I just know I get so sick of the sound of power tools that it makes me stabby.

I'm all sitting in my house screaming, "WOULD YOU JUST HAVE A FUCKING BARBECUE, OR SOMETHING QUIET, FOR GOD'S OWN SWEET SAKE??  JEEEEZUS!!"  and Dan's all, "What the fuck is your problem?  I love the smell of fresh cut grass..."

Oh, just BITE ME.

I like the smell of fresh cut barbecue, okay?  GOD.  Is that so wrong??  Plus it makes NO NOISE.

My landlord has been driving his lawn tractor around my apartment for the past three hours.  He has on headphones, which I'm about to rip off of his head so that I can wear them, and has mowed the same stretch of grass at least four times.  

Four times.

Is there some fancy lawn mowing contest going on that I don't know about?

See?  I had no idea it was such a big deal.

Also?

I've seen people driving their riding mowers to the Big M.

No, I'm not kidding.

They park them right next to the Amish buggies.

(Meanwhile, the horses are laughing at them.  They're all, "Dude... seriously?  You drove your garden tractor to the store to pick up another six pack?"  Or maybe that's just me laughing at them. I seriously thought it was the horses.)

Because apparently, after a hard day of sitting on your ass mowing your yard, you're too exhausted to get into your car and drive to the store.

Or something.

Or maybe all the cool kids drive their lawn tractors and I'm the big weirdo in the CAR and I don't even know it.

Maybe you burn off more calories sitting on a riding mower than you do sitting in your air conditioned car.

I hate not being in the loop.

It's like when all the other kids got to wear Ditto's jeans to school and my mother bought me some cheap knock-offs from Sears or Penney's.  They just weren't the same.

Also?  I started my period in those light blue fake Dittos while at school, thank you very much, and no one told me.

No one starts their period in light blue real Dittos, Mother.  

That's kind of how I felt sitting in my car at the Big M, surrounded by buggies and garden tractors.

I just sat there and waited to start my period.