ArcaMax

Chores I will gladly outsource to qualified professionals: oil changes, mammograms, colonoscopies, hair color, anything involving shingles, pipes, wires and/or drywall.

And lawn care. Where I live in Florida, the grass is fickle. That gnarly, matted weed bonanza that's either fully snuffed out or spreading like a tight, joy-smothering quilt.

We used to live on a double lot in a somewhat crunchy neighborhood, the kind of place where shoeless kids and chickens intermingled. A friend of a friend cut our grass for a pittance. Charity work, honestly, a favor. Thus, we never insisted on any set schedule. Once, he roared up on the riding mower like David Hasselhoff the night before Thanksgiving. In the dark.

Last fall, though, we moved into a tidier neighborhood with a homeowners association. One of the property's selling points was a much smaller yard. But per the contracts of suburbia, the grass would need more timely attention.

I'm sorry to be gender-normative, but I have boundaries on this. You will not catch me pushing a mower on my precious weekend. I am deeply disinterested in the lawn! Similarly, my houseplants gasp for life while I negligently mix up a martini.

My husband, he waters the plants. His Midwestern father taught him to love the type of gardening that's not possible in Florida's sandy loam. He is native plant-curious and knows the names of blooms on sight. He is handy and capable, is what I'm saying, even enthusiastic. To a point.

So I grew concerned when, as our first summer in the new house approached, he ran the numbers on the lawn service. He calculated "cost per use," a metric I have only applied to expensive shoes. On a per-use basis, buying lawn equipment would pay for itself in short order.

Cost per use requires the use part! I know us. We are not weekend warriors. We love to see the backs of our eyelids at 10 a.m. on Saturday. We are leisurely Wordle people. We are brewery people. We are antique store people. We do not find pleasure in tasks.

Truths:

I am not cutting the grass.

He is... maybe cutting the grass?

I co-signed cautiously, restating that I would have no role in this. And the DIY mowing went OK for a while! But conditions in Tampa Bay were extremely dry this season until they weren't. Florida's rainy season does not care about love languages. It does not care about enticing midcentury antiques on sale just down the street. Florida's rainy season giveth life, and it taketh sanity.

I got back from a trip this month. The lawn looked like... hmm, have you seen "Avatar"?

"We're going to get cited," I told my husband, who was busy doing inside activities such as laundry, dishes and unboxing a decorative brass pheasant wearing a top hat.

"No way," he said. "I've walked all over this neighborhood. Our yard is nowhere near the worst."

Oh. We had become "not the worst" lawn people. We had become solid C students sleeping inside hoodies. You never really get out of school, it turns out. You just answer to new teachers.

There's grace in accepting limitations, which is why I wanted to pay for lawn care in the first place. There's freedom in knowing you will never keep up with the Joneses. There's beauty in knowing your cost-per-use spouse won't use harsh pesticides to control weeds because he cares about the dwindling bee population. There's solace to be found in martinis!

The next day, while I was out doing anything besides cutting grass, he texted:

"Just finished the yard, lost six pounds of water." I came home to find the grass shaved on the shortest setting. The yard looked like a military recruit.

It promptly rained.

Does anyone want to buy a lawn mower?

========

Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

----

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate Inc.