Green With Envy

Sometimes it's hard to think of something interesting to talk about in the italicized prelude to these tales about life in the Sack. It can certainly be a great challenge to one's creative abilities.

Most of the time, however, we rise to the occasion with some degree of success. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those times.

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It has been a good year for grass in the Sack.

Rainfall was higher than average, so lawns were green and full. Three Sack residents replaced their existing lawns with new sod. Two of them now enjoy a thick carpet of healthy, robust grass.

So picking this year's most exceptional Sack lawn proved to be a challenging matter.

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The owner of the most exceptional grass wins the best lawn award. This is an unofficial honour that we bestow every year on a worthy Sack resident.

The best lawn award is more of a tongue-in-cheek nod toward its winner. By comparison, the Doug of the Year (DOTY) award is a very serious matter. The only thing the two awards have in common is that the recipient is often unaware of the honour.

If the best lawn award was more important, the first letter of each word would be capitalized. When capital letters are used in an award's name, you can bet it's a serious matter.

Capital letters always mean business.

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The best lawn award is really a mixed blessing for the winner.

On one hand, the winner receives acknowledgement for his (or her) lovely lawn. But he's also being recognized for his fastidious and slightly obsessive nature.

Either way, the best lawn award is still an achievement. The winner gets the spotlight for being exceptional amongst his peers.

And everyone, of course, loves a winner.

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Big Doug has won the best lawn award every year since its inception. Each time, Gordon has been the runner-up.

Big Doug and Gordon, in fact, have been the only Sack residents ever to contend for the award.

The rest of the Sack has tended toward two distinct camps when it comes to lawn care. The first group is made up by those who give their grass regular care, but aren't overly concerned about the results. This group includes the majority of Sack residents.

The second group is smaller, but still significant. These are people who, as Big Doug explains it, "don't give a rat's arse" about their homes, never mind their lawns.

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The best lawn award was addressed last weekend on our show. Weed was our lone guest for the entire evening. This gave us a perfect three-person panel for making a decision on the matter.

For the first time ever, there were four contenders. After a short debate, two were eliminated from consideration. This left us with two finalists.

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Elizabeth was one of the contenders dropped after the opening debate. She was also one of the Sack residents who acquired new sod earlier this summer.

It was quite ironic that Elizabeth would be a contender for the award. After all, she's the Sack's leading environmentalist. With her original lawn, her particular approach to organic lawn care resulted in a tangled mass of prickly weeds. Even a last-ditch, clandestine effort with a chemical spray couldn't bring her old lawn back to life.

In the end, she decided to start all over again.

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Elizabeth's new lawn remains in reasonably good shape. Good enough, of course, to be mentioned as a contender.

Unfortunately, she's still using her old approach to lawn care. Already there are small pockets of weeds taking form. Oscar says she needs to do something different or she'll end up right back where she started from. He could be right about this.

Insanity, as the great American, Ben Franklin once said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

***

Gordon was the other contender who didn't it make through to the final. This marks the first time he hasn't been one of the two finalists.

The decision to eliminate him from the award wasn't difficult. Gordon's house is currently undergoing renovation. He's having a small solarium added at the back of his house. As a result, a good part of his lawn has been affected by construction activities.

Of course, the grass that's unaffected by the renovation is in pristine condition. There's no question that Gordon would've been a finalist again if not for the renovations.

Under normal circumstances, Gordon is positively frantic about lawn care. Oscar says this is ultimately the characteristic that leads to Gordon's perennial second place finish. He says it's a good example of how "trying too hard" can be someone's downfall.

Oscar, of course, is always mindful about trying too hard at anything.

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Despite receiving a new lawn this year, Burning Manor didn't even come close to consideration for the award.

Within two months and despite good conditions, the new grass quickly took on the colour of ripened corn. Bald patches are starting to take shape and the first weeds have started to take hold. Dirk made a few efforts at lawn care, but it certainly wasn't enough. Dora, on the other hand, seems completely unaware of such matters.

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Weed says there is bad karma emanating from Burning Manor. He says it has seeped into the soil over time. A healthy lawn, he says, would seem impossible.

Oscar says he's going to ask Little Doug if there's anything that can be done about an infestation of bad karma on one's lawn. Little Doug, he argues, can repair just about anything and almost always has the right tool for the job.

According to Oscar, there is even a good chance that Little Doug will have something in his garage that can fix bad karma. I remain doubtful about this.

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Weed caused a lengthy digression during the best lawn deliberations with his rant about coloured lawns.

He wondered if grass could be genetically engineered to grow in different colours. He said it would be a fantastic thing to have a purple lawn. Oscar couldn't really decide which colour he would prefer. He said it would be a toss-up between blood red and turquoise.

I said I would prefer a rainbow-coloured lawn. The water sprinkler would shoot pixie dust into the air. And Mrs. Wonders' front garden areas would be filled with daisies.

Weed failed to see the humour in this. He said, "Now you're just talking crazy."

***

Eventually, we returned to the matter of the best Sack lawn.

The first of the two finalists was Big Doug. Once again, he produced a lawn worthy of the world's best golf courses. If one could choose only three words to describe Big Doug's lawn, it would be the following: Short, green and even.

If you can find a single blemish on his lawn, then you're a better man than I.

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The second finalist was Ben. He was the other person to replace his sod at the beginning of the season.

Ben has worked very hard to let the new sod flourish. His new lawn has grown thick and full. The grass is a deep green colour. Ben cuts it with the mower blades set high. This has kept his grass long, luxurious and healthy.

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Oscar argued passionately on behalf of Ben. If you were ever going to pass out on a lawn, he argued, you should consider yourself lucky to wake up on Ben's.

"Ben's lawn," Oscar said, as he raised a glass of drink to his lips, "is a lawn with substance."

It's also a very natural-looking lawn, in Oscar's opinion. By keeping it longer than usual, the grass looks very full. It looks like its just bursting from the ground. The dark green colour makes it look almost vibrant.

***

Weed was dead-set against Ben's lawn winning the award. In fact, he argued for its complete disqualification. He says the presence of Jeff Christ in Ben's home gives Ben an unfair advantage in the lawn care department.

All Jeff has to do, according to Weed, is to walk over Ben's lawn and it will be rejuvenated. He says this is the kind of power the Son of God throws around without even trying.

Weed said he used to have a small wart on the inside of his right baby finger. Apparently, it has almost disappeared since he shook hands with Jeff Christ back in late June.

This kind of power, Weed argued, gave Ben a huge edge in the area of lawn maintenance. He said Jeff walks across the lawn almost every day when the young man leaves for his job at Canadian Tire. The lawn, according to Weed, was getting first class treatment on a regular basis. And most of all, Ben didn't have anything to do with it.

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Big Doug, on the other hand, is tireless in his lawn care routines. At least, that's how Weed described it.

All anyone has to do after they look at Big Doug's lawn, he said, is to look at his approach to lawn tool maintenance. Weed says this is how Big Doug manages to stay "a cut above the rest" when it comes to lawn results.

Weed says Big Doug is like a one-man NASCAR pit crew with his lawn mower. When cutting is finished, he says Big Doug performs a complete cleaning and tune-up of the mower. This extra effort allows him to mow the grass to such a sharp and precise degree.

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The debate between Big Doug and Weed raged on. Eventually, they realized that I held the deciding vote. So they redirected their respective opinions toward your agent.

Finally, I told them that both made a provocative argument for their candidate. But neither convinced me that their candidate was more worthy than the other. From my own perspective, Big Doug and Ben were equally worthy of the best lawn award.

So I was prepared to cast my vote for the candidate supported by whoever was willing to rake the leaves from the Wonders' property next month.

***

Big Doug was the winner once again. I believe this is the seventh year in a row that he has won the award. It's also the second time that someone has broken the tie by agreeing to rake the Wonders' leaves. A few years ago, Little Doug agreed to do it, in exchange for my support.

I'm a big fan of the three-person panel.

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