When Tom and I got married, we had an agreement from the start. He would not have to cook, and I would not have to mow the lawn. Tom does not like to cook. He knows how to make one thing and that is spaghetti. He does not have a problem making this on occasion, and it actually does taste good. Anything else and you could be asking for trouble. His dislike and inability to cook is not a problem because whenever I don’t feel like cooking he simply asks, “Do you want to order out?”
I go away once a year for a long weekend with the women on my mom’s side of the family. It is our annual girl’s weekend away, and I love it. I look forward to that weekend for months. It is great just to spend some quality time with my family who I usually only see on that weekend because we all live scattered across the United States. One year we decided to go on a cruise so my time away from home was actually going to be 5 full days. When Megan heard this she went into panic mode. She shrieked, “We’re gonna starve! We’re going to die!” After I got her settled down and assured her that even if I wasn’t leaving behind some pre-made casseroles for her father to warm up, her father does know how to dial for pizza or run through the drive thru. I assured her that there was no way she was going to starve or die. She calmed down and I am happy to report that everyone had plenty to eat while I was away on my cruise.
Now my extreme dislike is mowing the lawn. I know that there are many people who love mowing the lawn. They love the opportunity to get outside in the fresh air and work in their yard. The only work I like to do in my yard is holding down my lounge chair while I soak up the sun. Occasionally I am inclined to turn on the sprinkler in the extreme summer heat but that is usually only when my children request it.
Tom loves to work in the yard. He finds it to be therapeutic. He actually gets a gleam in his eye when spring arrives and the winter snow has all left. There is a giddy sound in his voice as he plans out his Saturday which is full of trips to the home and garden store, mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, planting stuff, and oh yah, scooping a winters worth of doggie no-no. He isn’t usually too excited about that last part which is why there is a winters worth. Anyway, I have never understood this elation anymore then he can possibly understand my excitement over getting all the laundry washed, dried, folded, and put away in one day. Pure joy!
As much as Tom loves his yard work, he does find it difficult sometimes to devote the time he needs to it when work gets really busy. One summer he was very busy with meetings and had no time to mow the lawn in the backyard. I had invited a few friends and their children over for an afternoon of playtime and was distressed when I looked out in my backyard and saw a near forest growing from a two week hiatus of mowing. I had some pretty young children coming over for the play date. They were shorter then my lawn. They would surely get lost in my home grown jungle. How would I explain that to the parents? “Sorry, I lost your child in my overgrown backyard.” I’m guessing that kind of news would spread through the PTA like a California wildfire. Fast and furious. The implications from something like this could be catastrophic. And I’m just thinking about my family, not the poor lost child!
So some of you might be thinking that I either called the play date off or got the lawnmower out and mowed the lawn. You would be wrong on both accounts. I marched across the street to the neighbor boy and asked him if I could pay him to mow the lawn. He accepted.
I have to admit that after he started I am sure he wanted to back out. Like I said, it was a jungle in the backyard. The poor kid was seriously straining to push the lawnmower. He looked like a football player at practice pushing against that padded contraption that they push against. You know the one that the most overweight coach stands on and yells at the players to push harder while he goes for a ride down the football field. Yah that one. Anyway, I did run out periodically with water and coke to hydrate the poor kid who looked like he was on the verge of passing out. A few hours later he was done. I’m kidding, it wasn’t three hours. Maybe 2. I profusely thanked my neighbor boy. I’m pretty sure he will hide if he ever sees me walking across the street towards his house again.
We had the play date. The backyard looked great. No children were lost in the weeds. Tom returned home from his business trip the next day. He walked out into the backyard and a huge smile broke out across his face. He looked like he was on the verge of crying tears of joy. I knew that he had been thinking about how tall the grass was in the backyard and stressing because he had not had time to mow it before he left. I knew that the whole time he was driving home he was thinking about that yard that he had to get mowed. Tom likes to work in the yard, but when he hasn’t seen his girls for a while, he would rather be with us not the yard. I knew he was incredibly happy and thankful that all he had to do was spend some time with his girls. He looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you mowed the lawn! Thank you!” Hmmm to be honest or not. To be a super hero or fess up. In the end I decided that I’m a super hero in other ways so I confessed, “I didn’t mow the lawn.”
“You didn’t? Then how did it get mowed?”
“I ordered out.”
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