Christian Ross

Want proof of my laziness?

Recently, my lawn mower died, mid-mow. It was created and referred to as Frankenstein by a buddy of mine who combined the working parts of two mowers he had. It lived a good life, or three.

I’ll leave out the details of the lead-up, but I got a flyer on my door last week for a guy in the neighborhood starting a lawncare business. It sat on my desk for several days but on Friday before we headed out of town I gave Wayne (flyer distributor and lawncare entrepreneur) a call. Nice guy, drove over for a moment to quote me a price and we worked out a deal and a schedule.

Wayne informed me that he was retired, and looking for a way to stay busy. I told him the story of my mower and the lead-up to calling him. Handshake occurred, deal was made. After a much needed knock down of my St. Augustine on Friday, Wayne would start a regular rotation on Wednesdays.

Now, I know some of you may be thinking to yourself at this point, “now that Christian is a strapping young lad with rock-hard abs and the endurance of a wild antelope, why would he need someone to help him with the weekly task of mowing the lawn?” Two reasons:

1. Brandon (previous homeowner to 890 E. Riverside) failed to mention the work he put into making and keeping his yard the best looking on the block.

2. I’m lazy.

By understanding the two stated reasons fully, I knew that it would be much more to my benefit to find a man like Wayne who enjoyed his time as a green thumb and was willing to keep my yard in tip-top for a small fee.

But, as the radio great Paul Harvey always states, ‘…and now, the rest of the story…’

This Wednesday was my first, regularly scheduled day for lawn maintenance with Wayne and I was a bit excited. One, to be able to thank him for the fantastic job he did on Friday. And two, to reward him for it with a check in his name.

Wayne made it to the house as scheduled on Wednesday. The lawnmower started and thus I headed to the living room to get said check for him. As I made it out the front door, I noticed several things right off the bat. First, the Texas heat and DFW humidity were in full force that day. Second, the familiar sound of a lawnmower running. And third, the sight of Wayne standing by the pick-up truck filling the weed-eater with gas.

Now if you can put 1, 2, and 3 together you can probably tell Wayne wasn’t running the mower.

At that moment all proof of my laziness struck me; currently mowing my lawn was Wayne’s “supervisor” – his wife. His nice, older, should-have-been-enjoying-life-from-her-back-porch, wife.

I am that guy. The 29 year old, able-bodied male, who makes retired ladies cut his lawn. Feel free to insult me at any point. You have a free pass.

So here’s my dilemma: I now pay a retired lady to mow my lawn but there’s no possible way to fire her.

Thanks a lot laziness, you burned me again.