keepin up with the jones's

      I do not know any Jones’s. I mean I know the name, and I know there are some Jones’s. The Lions had a coach named June Jones, but I did not know him. I knew of him. I would say that I really cannot keep up with the Jones’s. or the Kardashians either…Even if I knew someone named Jones. Or even an alias Smith and Jones. Some one really needs to change that. That someone will not be me.

     I used to live in a subdivision that had a site condo association. There were all kinds of rules. There were also all kinds of imagined rules, interpretations of rules and the blatant ignoring of rules. The condostaupo (or neighborstaupo, you decide) enforced these rules. They had the book of rules and they had the clout to tell us what to do. Or so they imagined they did. They could fine us…..oh soooo scary…ooooh, I’m quakin’…Their ultimate threat was to file a lien on the property. Take a number and get in line, with all the other lawyers….

     One of the best unwritten rules was the keepin’ up with the Jones’s rule. If one person did something like water their lawn, most everyone else did. That is except me and a few other free-range condo dwellers. If someone decide to mow the lawn, the rest of the condo mowed there lawn. I cannot speak for the rest of the free-rangers, my lack of watering and mowing was not a “flipping the bird” thing. It was a lack of a lawn thing.

     I did not really have a lawn. Yeah, I had topsoil installed, and hydro-mulch and seed, and in-ground sprinkling, but the actual grass, picture-perfect site condo lawn; not so much. I paid some yahoo’s a bunch of money, but they did a poor job. The weather also did its part. Snow and rain washed away the precious seed and much of the topsoil. Also, the reality of my brown thumb is a karmic force to be reckoned with. Hence the attempt never really grew into a lawn. The county sent me a letter saying I had to protect the hill to prevent erosion. I had to file for an erosion permit extension. All they really wanted was another check.

     One day while I was perfecting the 12 oz. curl, looking wistfully at the patch of weeds and dust that was my picture, I mean, nightmare perfect front lawn one of the mouth-breathing condostaupo plodded up to me and asked, “When are you going to get a lawn?” I replied, “When the grass decides to grow, I will have a lawn. You cannot rush Mother Nature.” I had never really heard a guffaw until that day, but I will tell you this. It sounds EXACTLY like it is spelled.

     A few months went by and the lawn was still resisting any attempt to coax it from the weeds. Again, I was working on the 12 oz curl motion, and some guy walks up and says he is from Chemlawn or Greenlawn and he can help me. I think I may have guffawed, but I cannot not be certain. The cost was right, $12.00 per treatment, for six treatments. I agreed. It did not work.

     Then, one day, as I was perfecting the John McClane, you know smokin’ a cigarette, and killin’ some bad guys, (Not what you might think, I was popping the heads off dandelions, because I had a couple hundred thousand of them after the chemlawn fiasco) another of my condostaupo neighbors trolled by quipping, “When are you going to get your lawn cut?” to which I replied, “As soon as you come over and do it.”

     You might not believe this, but again another guffaw, and to really dial up the drama, the stink eye. I am not sure if I was quaking from the stink eye, alcohol withdrawal, or anger but suffice it to say, somewhere in a parallel universe I spent life in jail for poppin’ the head of that neighborstaupo. I am not sure if it was a Smith or a Jones, but I really do not care to keep up with either of them….

Just another day in paradise