You may have seen this story last week: Guy lets his grass grow long, but unlike the houses that have a commode on the porch and a crazy dog chewing through a chain-link fence, it's not because he's lazy. It's a natural lawn, with natural prairie grass. The city says: Looks like you can't be bothered to mow, so we'll do it for you and charge you $140 -- about three times what a private service would cost, but you suspect there's a little grudge-levy tacked on the bill.
I'm not a fan of the feral lawn, but done well they can be charming. But what if it's genuinely natural -- but ugly? Would I tattle on a neighbor, or wander over at night and strew herbicide? No. Their property, their choice. But we had a wild patch in the neighborhood this spring, and you wanted to call them and say, "Can you mow? Because the kids were playing ball and they found an old car in there. With a skeleton. Just a heads-up." The retreat of the snow revealed odd junk -- metal bars, an orange plank of wood, and a traffic warning signal the plows had pushed on the lawn. Then came the weeds -- chickweed, spurge, Bolivian monkey grass, everything you usually see on a yellow poison spray-bottle preceded by the word "kills." Then the dandelions, which infected everyone's lawns -- when the white seeds fly, it's the equivalent of sneezing in someone's face. In short: an eyesore.
Everyone else kept their lawn nice; what was the deal here? Well, it was a plot owned by the city. It didn't get mowed until a neighbor had some rather enthusiastic words with the city, and a few days later the junk was picked up, too. It was, after all, their junk: barriers they'd dropped off in October, and forgotten. The fact that they showed up on the day property taxes were due was probably coincidental.
As for the skeleton in the car: some kind of inspector, perhaps.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/blogs/lileks
