The Grass is Always Greener

Since we have moved into our new house, Chris has become obsessed with our yard.  He spends hours out there playing in dirt, digging holes, spraying water on things.   And the front yard is looking really great.  The grass is luscious.  The shrubs are trimmed.  And the whole look is topped off with my brand new autumn wreath I hung on the front door.   I’m pretty certain Martha Stewart drives by my house on a daily basis to get ideas.

And then there is the backyard.  The backyard is a little…well…it needs some help.  Through no fault of Chris’ the yard is just shot to hell.  I blame the dogs.  They romp, they root around, they lay in the flower beds, they dig holes, they poop, they pee, they chew on the bushes, they dig up flowers.  And it all shows in the backyard.  Add to this that the entire backyard is covered in trees, so no sunlight gets back there, and its not pretty.  There are patches of hopefulness, but its just not the thick, green look in our front yard.  And it kills Chris.  Kills him.   Every night he wanders out to the back deck and surveys the backyard, scheming up new ways to make it better.  And every night he comes inside cussing all of God’s green earth.  Frankly, its starting to get old.

But a few weeks ago, the next door neighbor’s yard died unexpectedly.  All together.  One night we went to bed and they had lush, green grass and the next morning we wake up to their barren waste land of brown grass.   Chris was ecstatic.  He was so excited that finally someone else’s yard looked as bad as his backyard.  Two or three days go by and Chris was like a different person.  He wasn’t pacing on the back deck mumbling about fertilizers.  He didn’t cry anymore when he drove by someone’s beautiful yard.  He just seemed more relaxed.

And then two days later, we woke up and the neighbor’s yard was bright green and healthy.  It was like a landscaping miracle.  Overnight they grew a golf course in their front AND backyard.  I’m serious.  It came in so fast I thought it had to be fake.  But it wasn’t, as proven by Neighbor Jeff mowing his lawn the very next afternoon.  Cause that’s how fast it grew.  It was like a mythical beast.

I put Chris on a suicide watch.  I thought he would either hurt himself or Neighbor Jeff, so I confined him to the house.  But that hasn’t stopped him from staring out the window at the grass next door.  Occasionally he sighs a low, mournful sigh, but mostly he is just quiet.  Quietly seething inside.  And I feel bad for him.  And his crummy backyard.  I also feel bad for Neighbor Jeff, who is blissfully unaware that deep inside the house next door, his neighbor is scheming about ways to kill his greener grass.

Yard envy.  Killing suburbia one dying yard at a time.