MR WRONG: Lawn rager
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 74
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: My Yard-Care Goal Is to Kill My Grass
IT IS STILL Springtime, and I would like to discuss plants, but first, here is the tip button!
We have some Indignity supporters who have been very nice and sent in tips and donations, and while I get a headache trying to think about the difference between a Tip and a Donation, I would like to say from everyone here at the Mr. Wrong column, thank you very much for your Tip and/or Donations, and for the rest of you, we have this excellent podcast to help you stay on top of current events but mostly it's about the morning New York Times, and you should listen to it, and it’s fuckin’ FREE, don’t cost nothing, so you should Tip and or Donation for that, OK? Today’s podcast was really good, it had production values and everything, and the great thing about these podcasts is they are not really long, today’s was like less than 15 minutes, and it made me smarter, I swear.
TOM SCOCCA
Tom Scocca
Alright, like I said, it is still Springtime, and every year I try to organize the plants that grow up out of the very Earth itself, and I get all excited thinking about how I am going to dig in a certain part of my lawn (which I hate) and then I will plant things, and they will help to kill my lawn.
Because I am a sucker, this year I fell for an ad on the Internet that shows all these lovely low-growing flowering plants and the ad was like, hey man, we know you hate your lawn, and if you buy our seeds and grow them where your lawn is, it won’t be a lawn anymore, it will be this beautiful garden of low-growing and low maintenance plants and your world will be changed and you will be happy and enjoy life more, mostly because you are too lazy to cut your lawn and you bought our product to help you be lazy.
You see? My lawn makes me think I am Lazy, which, technically is one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Lazy, and that really makes me Angry, which I am pretty sure is another of the Sins: Angry, but I am not going to look it up because: Lazy.
So then I feel bad about feeling bad about being Lazy, you know? I didn’t sign up for fucking Field Hand duty, you know? I am a homeowner, and in this Economy, I can’t afford to hire somebody to go around my house and make a garden or whatever, so it’s all on me, and the main thing is the stupid lawn. I got a goddamn ticket once from the City of Baltimore because one of my busybody neighbors narced on me and they came out and measured the grass in my back yard and it was too long, so I got a $15 fucking ticket, and wow did that make me mad, but also, yeah, I keep the fucking grass cut because I don’t want another ticket, but now I’m worried about the lawn, at night I’m in bed with the window open and I can hear it growing!
I see all these people who grow like a Pollinator Garden or an English Garden in their front yard, so I keep trying to do that, but it always ends up being weeds, on account of I don’t want to spend any time doing this shit! Lazy! I gotta go out and “weed” now? My fucking lawn? Also, I am highly fucking allergic to poison ivy, and it’s out there in my back yard, so I have to wear a motherfucking hazmat suit to “touch grass,” yeah, you go “touch grass,” while I refill my prescription for steroids to help with the poison ivy burns I got all over my arms. I really hate my lawn.
Anyway, though, I like flowers, and I try to grow some plants that have flowers, and every plant like that means one less grass plant. The ones that are the most successful in the front yard have been these orange lilies, and they grow like weeds, and every year they come up, and then in a month or two we get these nice flowers, and I don’t have to do anything, but this year I decided I wanted to Control my area better? I got all these big ideas to move some of the lilies, and I gave some to my neighbor for her to kill, and Jesus Christ, it’s hard work digging in the ground and moving it, you know? I’m tired, seriously, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a farmer or a horticulturalist or whatever, my hands are sore from digging.
I have this “Classic Baltimore” planter that a friend made for me. He came over to the house one day for a cookout and brought an old tire, and he cut it up into a festive planter and dropped it on my front lawn. I went to an Indigenous Plant sale that the Baltimore Dep’t. of Whoever Is In Charge of Plants put on, and they had all these plants that are guaranteed to grow in Baltimore because they are native. I bought a hydrangea and some sorta green bush and they are doing great, and I also bought these beautiful little yellow plants and put ‘em in the tire planter, and they have been coming up every year like clockwork, except somehow some of the lilies got into the planter, and they started crowding out the little yellow guys, and I got mad at the lilies, so a week ago I weeded out all the lilies, and left the roots and stems of the yellow ones, and then I didn’t water it, and we had some bright sunny days, and the plants got cooked and I don’t think they’re coming back, I murdered them.
I gotta end this on a positive note! Milkweed, yes! That is my gardening success story!
This is a lily and the milkweed last year.
Milkweed is a very pro-Nature plant, it is the food of the Monarch butterfly caterpillar, and I got some seeds and planted them and they come up every year, and they are really weird looking.
OK, this column didn’t really turn out the way I wanted it to, I apologize, kind of a bummer, but maybe the yellow plant will come back, somehow. I went out and watered the planter today, it’s a lotta work. I hate my lawn. Plants are good, though.
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, April 23, 2025
★★★★★ The cat stared at the moving shadows where a sunbeam reached all the way into the bedroom and under the desk. It was another morning too fine to have to be spending on the couch, with the forecast mild enough for shorts. Two male cardinals battled up and down the tree outside the window, chirping at each other and launching into brief aerial dogfights. The day was just enough cooler and drier than the day before to make it something different, but no less comfortable to finally get out into for an errand. The cat moved westward to find a late-afternoon sunbeam cutting across the living room to land on the rug by the dining table. Out along the edge of the Park, the branches in the middle distance closed into a solid green roof above the sidewalk. A dog about the color of a deer, at half the size, stood in the woods off an uphill path doing what could have passed for foraging. Runners finished a vigorous pass along the cinder track and came wandering back retrograde to regroup and start again. The late light caught in the dust of their passing. Sun cut through the trees on the way back downhill, flanked by a second sun reflected off the windows of a tower some 60 degrees away. A dog's squeaky toy joined the chorus of birds. The light shot through the archway down in the Loch, skimming every individual stone. A new second sun flared on the surface of the Pool, and then a shadow running backward drew a line to yet another sun in the glass of a building on the East Side. A mosquito trap hung whirring and empty for now.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
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TOM SCOCCA
VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS DEP'T.
Spring Flowers
More consciousness at Instagram. We detest the new rectangular-images grid.
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Prague Chapter Book Of Recipes, compiled by Marie Paidar and Blanche Kammerer, published in 1922, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
HAM SANDWICHES—One-half pound cold boiled ham, one-fourth cup mayonnaise, thin slices of bread. Chop ham very fine without removing the fat. Mix with mayonnaise and spread between layers of thinly sliced bread. BERYL CISLER.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
