Cutting the Grass

What is it with this society's abnormal preoccupation with cutting the grass?

The Ivory Madonna currently presides over about half an acre of ground. Before her arrival, this half-acre was a vast wasteland of grass, with a nice line of cedar trees along one border. Just the sort of place that would make a nice, native-growth meadow.

Harumph. Tell that to the Lawn Nazis.

Yes, the Ivory Madonna's local government has an entire department of the bureaucracy devoted to the sole task of forcing people to cut their grass. Every month or so, when the neighbors call the Lawn Nazis upon her, the Ivory Madonna receives a threatening letter from this department, telling her that if her plants are not trimmed to below six inches, they will send a crew out to do so, and then charge her for the service.

Then down come the daisies, the coneflowers, the wild roses, the ornamental grasses, the waves of amber grain. Away flee the bunnies, the birds, the butterflies and dragonflies, and all the other happy animals whose habitat has just been slashed to the ground.

Meanwhile, in a nation that is suffering from a shortage of petroleum products, countless gallons are wasted in weekly mowings. Greenhouses gases pour into the atmosphere from millions of lawnmowers. A positive haze of ozone and other pollutants hangs over the world. Not to mention the thousands of person-hours lost in this constant grass-cutting.

Why? To satisfy conformity. To provide lawnmower dealers with a guaranteed income. And (it's no secret) to personally annoy the Ivory Madonna and her entourage.

This nonsense must cease.

M.

---

The Ivory Madonna's story is told in Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers.