So we haven't cut our grass this year yet because first I needed to tune up the riding mower, and then when I got it running, the shit was all fucked up smoking the deck belt. I got it apart on Tuesday and figured out one of the blades was gummed up, loosened it, made it good, except in the time of not being good, a pretty good spot on the deck belt got wore out almost to nothing. I had bought an extra, but it was the wrong size when I went to hook it up, so I put the old one back on and seriously cut one swath at the side of the yard (like 2.5 acres for my yard btw) and the belt gave out. Fine enough, I'd get the right one today.
Well, before we bought this place, there's a retired state pig two neighbors over, and he had called our landlord complaining about how we don't cut the grass. Firstly, this is a rural ass area, like I have 5 acres and just because the next four houses past mine are all clumped together and they keep their grass cut like a marine head has no bearing on me. Fuck them. But secondly, neighbors be keeping their shit clean and probably hate (2 junk cars, freezer on the front porch, tall grass, dilapidated camper on property, also tipi on property, also pigs and chickens on property, also scrap metal pile on property, but whatever... I digress).
Well today I walk out on the porch as my wife gets home and all the kids run out to greet her, and this halfwit landscaper fuck is riding by on his lawn mower, even though he lives like a quarter mile away. He's looking my way, so I suspect his halfwit ass already. Wife comes in, I split to town to get 2 chickens to throw in the oven for dinner, and as I'm driving off, the halfwit guy is like an 1/8 of mile past my house, heading back. All he had cut was this one strip in front of a guard rail where some kid wrecked his motorcycle and died 3 years ago and there's been plastic flowers in the turn ever since. He looks at me retardedly but I can see in his halfwit eyes something is up. I go to the store, figuring he's cutting the front fenceline in front of our field, which other motherfuckers have tried to cut before too.
I should mention my wife is a certified herbalist and harvest a lot of shit out of the yard. In fact, when I do cut the yard, there's always like 37 different clumps of plants I'm supposed to leave alone. I never thought in my life at some point I'd be all like, "Yeah, that's a patch of yarrow, so don't fuck with that. Also, I better swerve around all these violets because the kids like to put the flowers in salads," and so on and so forth. But I am man enough to admit I can grow.
Anyways, when I get home, dude has cut along the road, only one strip coming up to the house, so I drive past, looking at fenceline, hoping that motherfucker cut it. Nothing though, so I turn back around and ride all the way past my house again to see if he cut anything else on the side of the road at the one other neighbor going that way. A little maybe, not much, but enough were I could justify going in my head, "Okay, the retard just wanted to ride along and trim the edge of the road. It's all good. Go cook your chickens."
Then I pull in the yard and notice almost all of our front yard cut, including the violets and a couple huge patches of peppermint. I'm pissed, but I go inside and ask my wife, "What's going on?" Apparently, halfwit dude, having seen me drive by, comes in my fucking yard and starts cutting the grass. My 10 year old is playing in the back yard, runs in the house to tell my wife. Wife goes out, dude stops, and she's like, "What are you doing?" He mumbles about helping out, blah blah blah, she tells him she collects the plants and he's already cut shit he shouldn't have. So he leaves.
This is not good enough for me, because I know country dudes, and women don't count. So I roll up to his house, except I see no sign and up the road I see him cutting another dude's yard. I roll up there, even though it's probably a paying customer for him. He sees me, stops the mower, and is like turned sideways like he's trying to figure out what to say, or preparing to get his ass kicked. As I get out of my truck, he starts walking over with his hand out saying, "Man, I fucked up. I really fucked up," which of course takes me off my game, but not really. So as he apologizes constantly and says he apologized to my wife and tell her he's sorry again, I'm like, "next time you want to help somebody, you might want to ask first." But then I'm like, man fuck this dude, and I say, "You saw me drive by, didn't you? I find it odd you drove up into my yard and started cutting my grass when you saw me drive by." He dropped his retard eyes on that one. Then he's like, "I know. And I want to thank you for that time you stopped and helped me," which is funny because I had completely forgotten how he was broke down at one end of the road one time and I stopped to see what was going on but he already had somebody bringing him some oil but I helped him get the car off the road at least or something. That's how I roll. (In fact, side note, the census is doing prelim eyeball canvassing right now to make sure where to mail things, and I've had two people stopped on surrounding roads that I've stopped to make sure were okay, and they acted like I was crazy. Actually, the lady was cool and appreciative and explained what she was doing, which is how I know this is going on, but the old dude just looked at me and didn't even answer me. Fuck him too.)
Anyways, I end up, after the 39th "I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry," tell him, "Forget it. I just want to make sure it doesn't happen again." And he says it won't. (Oddly enough, this is the second halfwit who has done this exact same thing, and now the other one won't even look at me when he drives past. Hopefully this will go the same way.)
I am a stubborn fucker too though, and now I'm pissed because I finally have my mower running, and the right size deck belt for it, but now when I put it together tomorrow and cut grass if it's not raining, I'm gonna look like the chump who got bullied by the halfwit who was probably coaxed into action (perhaps even paid) by the shithead retired state trooper two houses down.
Also, and my wife talked me out of this, I was going to take some extra paint and go up there to the halfwit's house and paint his front door while no one was home, and claim I was just trying to help, because I noticed his door hadn't been painted in a few years. But I think my wife has finally caved into allowing me to erect some sort of half-assed plywood sign. I wanted one during the election to say something I thought was super clever back then, but I can't really remember now. It might've even been "OBAMA - He's one of the good ones," but then I realized only hardcore racist rednecks would understand that and regular people might actually think I was actually gonna vote for Obama. But I think I can have a sign now that says "KEEP OFF MY GRASS - NO MATTER HOW TALL IT GETS."
