The Lawn Fairy

On Saturday I dropped Youngest Daughter off at the high school for her audition for the spring musical.  Part of the audition involved singing the “Welcome to Duloc” song from Shrek, and I’ve been helping her practice all week.  After driving home, I then drove back to the high school and brought her the cell phone she had forgotten.

Back home for the second time, I underwent a magical transformation, sort of like at the end of Beauty and the Beast when the spell on the prince is broken.  Except I did not become a dreamy French prince with Jesus hair.  No, I put on my torn jeans and an old t-shirt, and became The Lawn Fairy.  I felt I rather resembled our lawn mower, which is middle-aged, looks very used, has extra baggage on the side, and usually has some old dirt in the back.  It also acquired a piece of moss during the mowing. 

 

Our middle-aged suburban housewife mower

This transformation into Lawn Fairy was necessary. With the Common Household Son away at college, the Husband away at scientific meetings/looking after his mother, and Youngest Daughter with no energy left after marching band practices, it fell to me to mow the lawn. 

I put gas in the mower, and started it up.  When my children were quite young, I used to enjoy mowing the lawn because I could be alone with my own thoughts.  Sometimes I would sing triumphantly in my head, “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar! See Me Mow this Lawn Some More.” This time, though, I was alone with the “Welcome to Duloc” song in my head, especially this unfortunate part:

Keep your feet off the grass,

Shine your shoes, wipe your … face.

Duloc is, Duloc is,

Duloc is a perfect place!

Our lawn is anything but perfect.  It’s overridden with moss, except where there is dry dirt.  It is riddled with tree roots.  It’s a wonder it has any grass that needs to be mowed.  It has a 20° incline, except where there is evidence of some subsidence (mole manors?  chipmunk castles?).  There’s even a place where you can easily break your leg.  

The Duloc song was appropriate after all, because the whole scene in Shrek is, like, ironic, right?  Duloc is the opposite of perfect. 

I found out that it is not wise to just mow over the leaves that have fallen on the lawn, as they clog up the mower bag.  I imagined the leaves causing the mower to catch fire. So not only did I mow the lawn, but I had to rake part of it first.  I finished the whole task just a bit before YD had to be picked up after the audition.  Man, I was exhausted.  I’m grateful that I got the lawn mowed, and even more grateful that the audition is over and that song is out of my head.