JESS DU JOUR: A LAWNMOWER'S LAMENT

My neighbors, the yard Nazis, have been mowing their impeccably trimmed lawn for months. The moment that one can detect visible grass molecules on their front lawn dirt, they fire up the mower and shave it off. Mom tells me that, late at night, she sees them running around in their front lawn barking "Heil John Deere!" and making swastika designs with their azalea patches.

And ridiculing them made me feel immensely better about the tropical grass forest that had germinated in our own front yard. I would stand in front of our house and peer out at the flower fascists from behind one of our 8-foot dandelions:

"Heeee, heeee. I see you over there, das fuhrer. Your grass may be well-pruned, but I am hiding a small automobile in MINE," I would jeer.

But soon, we, instead of our yard-Nazi neighbors, became the butt of all the neighborhood jokes. We started getting obscene phone calls where we would hear heavy breathing and lawnmowers and hedge-clippers in the background. People would drive by slowly and hurl weed-eaters at our front door.

My parents began to think that, at some random point in the near future of the planet, we should mow our lawn. That point, for me, came soon enough.

Being the oldest and obviously most adept at lawn-mowing, I got pinned with the annual spring chore. I trudged up the stairs to find the trusty riding lawn mower that I had motored around on at our old house. I was decked out in full-bikini, ready to quickly polish off the lawn and then lounge in my backyard and read. This image, however, was quickly dissolved with my mother's maniacal laughter.

"Hey Maaaoooom, where's the riding lawnmower?" I queried. Doubled over with hysterical amusement at my innocent question, Mom reminded me that the riding lawnmower was in storage and that I would have to use the Mephistopheles-mobile itself -- the push-mower.

In all honesty, mowing with a push-mower is not such a formidable task within itself. It is, however, a bit embarrassing when you are forced, by female authority, to sport tall socks and goggles while you mow. Mom always assures me that she is protecting me from objects that might be hurled out of the side of the mower. In my mind, the only thing that she is protecting me from is sun rays that are hurling down from the sky that make me have a stupid raccoon-antelope tan for weeks after I mow.

When we read about lawn grass in literature, I kid you not, it is often referred to as hair. Thomas Dekker called grass "the hair of the earth". Walt Whitman called grass the "beautiful uncut hair of graves." I, with my goofy goggles and funny sunburns, call grass "the stuff that multiplies exponentially in my yard and turns my tennis shoes green."

And believe me, with the amount of "hair" that grows in my yard, not even a yard-Nazi would jump at the chance to trim it.

~Jessica McCuan is the editor of the Jackson High School newspaper, the Squawler.