New Turf - Part One

Listen to this.

About six months ago I was laid off from a job I had held for almost 4 years. This wasn’t easy news to swallow for neither myself nor my wife. Although I’ll admit, once I got her breathing again and poured her a glass of wine, she seemed more secure with the situation than I. I wasn’t going to take this lying down though, not because it’s against my nature – heck – I’d take just about anything lying down you wanted to throw at me, but because I’ve always had it in my head that in the event of a layoff, I’d really prove to my family and the world that I could land on my feet. So I made a rather aggressive goal of finding a new, better job within one month.

The night of my layoff I jumped into action. I updated my resume, setup accounts on all the internet job boards, and finally, late at night, sat down with a calculator to figure out just how much money we could, as a family of five, spend while being supported by unemployment insurance without having to dip into savings. It was almost 11pm, and I was physically tired, and emotionally exhausted. I’d been running on pure adrenaline since noon, working feverishly in full denial of my fate, and fending off the gnarling, gnashing jaws of reality that I had starved for nearly twelve hours and which now fought to seize hold of my ego and devour it.


Now, math was never my strong point, and that, combined with my mental fatigue may have contributed to the following calculation blunders. I sat staring at the screen in disbelief. The way I figured, we could make our mortgage payments for a period of three months if we made the following alterations to our lifestyle: Ate generic raisin bran for each meal; didn’t drive the cars; stopped bathing, didn’t use the phone, furnace, or any electricity, and allowed the cats and dog to fend for themselves. That sounded too restrictive, I mean I had to drive to job interviews, so I went back to the drawing board, and altered the plan slightly. OK, if we ate TWO bowls of cereal per day instead of three, sold our furniture and most of our clothing, we could probably afford six hours of electricity per day, two baths each per week, and enough gas to drive 40 miles per month. Man, I was a wreck. How could I tell my three kids that Santa couldn’t afford Christmas this year? How could we all stomach that much fiber? These numbers still seemed very wrong, so I decided to go to bed and re-visit them in the morning.

That next morning I realized the sole source of my errors was that I was doing the calculations instead of my wife. She made that clear to me, in so many words, and I decided to allow her the satisfaction of letting her think she had the upper hand. . .again.

I was proud of myself for waking up at my usual ‘work’ time, and diving right into the job hunt. I sat down at my computer, started it up and realized there was something missing – donuts! I mean how could I expect to think without food in my stomach, and what’s a more appropriate food for breakfast than donuts? I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my car keys and stepped outside. It was a beautiful late-fall morning, and I figured it would be a crime – no, worse than a crime - a show of disrespect to mother nature if I were to drive to the donut shop on such a lovely day, so I decided to walk. 40 minutes later I arrived. The donut shop was crowded. Lots of casually dressed people waiting in line, sitting and relaxing at tables with newspapers. . .Newspapers! I thought – I need a newspaper. I stepped outside and bought an Orange County Register. Now all I needed was a couple of donuts and coffee, and if I found a spot to eat here instead of carrying it all back home that would be more – resourceful and efficient – right? I found a table near the window, and sat down, prepared to scour the classifieds for positions awaiting my talents. I took a sip of coffee, then slowly raised the old-fashioned glazed to my mouth. That’s the absolute best part of eating a donut – the split second before the first bite where you breathe the sticky-sweetness into your nose and mouth simultaneously, and you can taste it before it ever makes contact with your tongue. Delicious. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, but I felt a little blue – I mean the sun was shining through the window, the donuts and coffee were perfect, but I needed something – laughter! I opened the paper to the comics section and began reading – ahhh good old Garfield – when will Odie ever learn. . .hehe. On my way back from the coffee refill station I spotted a familiar, but unwelcome face. My ex-neighbor - the only person in the world I’d consider my enemy was sitting at a booth on the opposite side of the dining area. His beady eyes were hidden in the shadow of his baseball cap, but I knew it was him – the same way a cobra can sense a nearby mongoose – pure reptilian instinct.

I sidestepped back to my table, and considered sitting in the other chair so that my back was to him – less chance of being seen; then I remembered something I heard about how you should never have your enemies at your back, so I sat facing him. I picked up the newspaper and flipped to the classified section – the good ol’ help wanted ads. This is the way I had to find my last job, and it worked just fine – who needs fancy internet job boards, unemployment forums and cyber-headhunters?!? The trusty newspaper would do just fine. My eyes were darting about the page and I was finding it hard to concentrate knowing that Mike Glick was sitting just a donut’s throw away from me. I remembered the whole episode so clearly.

The saying about how you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your neighbors is true. Five years ago when we moved to the OC, Mike Glick and his wife Veronica greeted us at our driveway with hearty handshakes and a plate full of freshly-baked oatmeal cookies. I was busy moving things into the house, and thought that was obvious, but Mike decided that was the right time to talk to me about some of the problems he had with the former owners of my house. “Yeah – I tried for six years to get them to install sprinklers for the front and back yards, but some people just don’t care about their lawns.” I looked over to the front lawn of my new house. It was dusk, but still bright enough for me to see that the grass was deeply, uniformly green and well-manicured. I looked back at Mike who was still talking. “And really, Bermuda is not the most attractive grass – at any price. Take my lawn for example” He waved his hand like a game show host in the direction of his yard. “Now that is a custom mixture of Northern Kentucky Bluegrass and Dwarf Samoan Fescue. I had my landscape architect dig down exactly 27 inches to lay a mixture of clay and soil that’s my own secret recipe, so I’d tell ya more, but I’d have to shoot ya!” He shot his elbow toward my ribs, but I blocked it with my forearm. I said “Well, I gotta get back to moving in now. Thanks again for the cookies.” “Wife baked them herself this afternoon – ummm only made two dozen and I got one – gave the rest to you.” “Would you like one more – the plate’s in the kitchen.” “Naw – that’s OK – I’ll let ya owe me one. By the way, I saw you have cats – are they indoor or outdoor?” “Outdoor mostly” I said. “Too bad. Cat urine is horrible for lawns.” We just stood looking at each other – I had no idea how to respond to that statement. “You see. . “ Oh God, here we go. . . “Cats are carnivores so they have a high concentration of protein in them. Well protein breaks down to nitrogen in the kidneys, and comes out as a type of concentrated nitrogen fertilizer in their urine.” “I thought fertilizer is good.” I said with a half smile. “Not pure nitrogen! Breaks down the grass’s ability to absorb other nutrients so what you get is a green-up effect followed by a brown-down.” “A brown-down?” “yeah – the opposite of a green-up - the patch of grass that got peed on dies within seven to ten days.” “Are those seven to ten working days or. . .” I was trying to get him to lighten up a little. “Huh – I . uhh. I don’t think that matters. Anyway, I’ve got that fence there which does a good job keeping the dogs out, but the cats just look at it as a challenge, and climb right over. I’ve got varmit deterrents like high frequency sound generators to keep the gophers out, but the cats – they’re not affected by that. OK – well, I better get back to what I was doin’ (like I was holding HIM up) nice meetin’ ya” Mike turned around and walked back over to Veronica who was talking with Elizabeth.

The next morning I got up at dawn to start unpacking all of my garage stuff, and as I stood looking out of our front window, I saw the silhouette of a person hunched over Mike’s lawn. I opened the garage door and walked outside to find Mike spraying RoundUp onto the grass through what looked like a funnel. He saw me and said “Early bird gets the worm – ehe?” “Yeah – what are you doing?” “Getting rid of renegades” he said. “Doesn’t matter how pure your grass seed mixture may be, there’s always going to be birds or the wind dropping seeds of one kind or another onto your lawn. Now I can take care of the birds” He made the universal shotgun in the air, skeet shooting gesture. “but the wind – well, haven’t learned how to control that yet.” Man, this guy was whacked. “Using an inverted funnel so that I can direct the RoundUp to kill only the patches I need to and not the surrounding grass.” “And then what?” I asked. “Then I wait seven days, pull up the dead patch and plant my seed in its place.” Did he just say ‘plant his seed?’ “Can’t you just pull up the weed?” I said. “May not get the entire root. RoundUp kills from the inside out – starves the plant of a vital amino acid so that they can’t photosynthesize – kills the whole damn thing on a cellular level.” Fascinating.
Living next to Mike was like living next to Bill Nye the science guy a week after going cold turkey off his thorozine.

A few days later Elizabeth and I were cooking dinner when we heard a horrible sound coming from the front of our house. We both scampered out to find Mike holding our older cat by the nape of his neck – arm outstretched and walking toward us. “If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your cats in your yard – don’t know how you’re going to do that, but that’s not my problem. Caught the critter peeing on my lawn!” I ran over to him and plucked the cat from his hand. Elizabeth and I were silent for a few seconds, then I said “There’s no way we are going to be able to keep our cats from ‘visiting’ your lawn. You’ll have to learn to live with that fact – and don’t ever mistreat my cat again.”

The next weekend Mike was sitting out in a lawn chair on his back patio when my son kicked the ball over his fence. Nick ran up to me and told me about it, so I walked into our backyard and peeked over. “Hey Mike – did you see a ball come over the fence?” Mike didn’t look up from his book. “Nope.” I glanced around the yard then back at Nick “Are you sure it went over?” “Yes – straight over right here.” Nick pointed at the place in the fence it passed over. “Mike – you mind if I come over there to take a look – my son said it came over right here.” Mike didn’t take his eyes away from the book. “Ahh now’s not a good time, neighbor – sorry.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I mean, I’d heard of people like this, but never met one. It was like I’d stepped over some imaginary boundary that separates our normal world from the exaggerated, stereotypes portrayed in bad fiction and any movie starring Steve Guttenburg.

My son and I went to the store to buy another ball and when we got back, I witnessed the event that broke down all walls of decency and forgiveness on my part. As we drove up to our house my son and I both watched as Mike kicked our younger cat about six feet into the air and off his yard. The cat scampered sideways then ran under a parked car. I calmly told Nick to take his ball and go into the house. I sat in the car for a second. Mike saw me there, and he turned, walked back toward his garage and picked up the garden hose. Mike seemed to me to be the kind of guy who would be fueled by conflict. I’d only known him a little over a week, but I guessed that Mike would take any aggressive behavior on my part and use it as ammunition to commit some other cruel act. He was really enjoying having this feud and I’ll bet he was sad when he found out the last owners were moving because he wasn’t sure if the new owner would be an easy target. This feud defined him just as much as his meticulous lawn care did – it was all starting to come together.

I got out of the car, smiled at Mike, and simply said “I saw that...” Mike just glared at me, but also looked somewhat relieved that I didn’t walk up and pummel him. I just kept walking - right past him and over to the cat who was wheezing under the car. I carefully picked him up and brought him into the house. One of my best friends from high school is a veterinarian so I took my son along, and we drove the cat to his office. He took some x-rays, and he didn’t charge me for extracting 20 cubic centimeters of air from the sack around the cat’s lungs – neumothorax I think they call it when air escapes into the chest cavity. Anyway, he said the cat probably would have died without treatment. The cat, by the way, recovered within a couple of days and is still doing just fine. The thought occurred to me to ask my friend to mock up a bill so I could hand it to Mike, but I realized that would just be fueling the fire. No one with a personality like Mike’s would gratefully accept the bill and pay for it. That would just turn into a mess and work against me. No – I had to be creative about how I handled Mike. On the way home from the vet, I thought about what I knew about the guy. I knew three things for sure: He thrived on conflict, he was extremely self-important, and he had an unnatural obsession for his lawn. Then I thought about the few necessary elements for my plan.
1. Fist and foremost it should be innocuous – no one could be hurt.
2. It had to not feed the feud, in fact if possible, it should deflate it.
3. Whatever I did should be as discrete as possible. He shouldn’t know I was to blame, but should suspect me without any way to prove it.
4. The outcome of the act would lesson the chances of either of my cats being hurt by him again.
5. And finally, whatever I did, it had to hit him where he lived so it would leave a lasting impact.

The pieces of the plan formed, and as they did, a smile, no – a grin grew on my face that I’m sure would have frightened me if I looked in the rear-view mirror. As soon as I got home I went to the computer, fired up Google and Wikipedia, and started learning everything I could about lawns.