It's been little over a year since our newly constructed house was finished, and recently, the new sod for our backyard was put down. It seemed hunky dory dandy, and yet... soon we noticed there were yellowed patches here and there. The worst of it was that there seemed to be particularly long grass growing. It literally felt like I was looking at a field of grass in the Legend of Zelda. I was soon to discover that, unlike the video game, removing grass was no easy feat.
Today the power cut out in the early morning. Although it was a tad devastating, I had hoped I could read a nice book, or perhaps I could brainstorm story ideas, which I have been terribly neglecting. Alas, for this was not to be. My dad caught my sibling and I lounging about in the kitchen doing nothing in particular (in my case I was munching upon some cornbread crackers), so he decided to give us a "fun" chore. He took us to the backyard and said that we should pull weeds. He demonstrated how to carefully pull out these weeds without also pulling out grass and sod. However, those "weeds" looked suspiciously like grass. It appeared to us both that it was merely grass that happened to be a little taller than the rest. Incidentally, the "normal grass" was also much higher than I was used to seeing. Nevertheless, we had to do it. By hand. I can't think of a more aggravating chore than this.
Interesting side note: there were a lot of mushrooms as well. Just what I always wanted in my new yard!! Complimentary mushrooms!! What are we, hobbits? For some reason the little things bothered me. It wasn't because I imagined they were the deadly Medusoid Mycelium (okay I did imagine it just a bit), but I didn't want to step on them. Progress was quite slow. It wasn't long before we both started abandoning care. Dad was hardly going to notice a few strands of normal grass missing, though admittedly there were a couple moments when, in my haste, I nearly pulled up an entire square of grass. A few pats here and there and it was good as new. I hope. We'd go so much faster if we were slightly less careful, and it seemed absurd that dad would actually check each individual blade of this grass to be sure we had done as he had instructed.
My arms and legs began to ache, then my fingernails and knees. My hands were coated with a rusty-looking soil. I daresay it looked a bit like dried blood. We took a short break, and we were still less than halfway done. The yard, like Russia, remained stupidly big. I guess I should count my blessings that there weren't a great deal of nasty surprises waiting in the grass, such as bugs. The weather could have been worse, but I started to feel the heat once I resumed the task after a quick rest. It'd have felt less pointless if the weeds had actually felt like weeds. Dad appeared on the deck above us, calling out. He said, "Wow, you guys pulled up a lot of grass! .... Grass. ... Weeds." I rather fancy that the slow way he said grass a second time was a sign that somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized on some level that what he had told us to pull up were not weeds. That doubt quickly vanished, of course.
I shall never again look fondly upon the grass cutting pastime in Legend of Zelda. Contrary to what Link would have me believe, one does not simply hack wildly at real grass with a sword. I don't know about anyone else, but I felt that surely, someone somewhere in the world has invented a tool that could pluck individual stalks of grass with more efficiency than crawling around on hands and knees or stooping while shuffling awkwardly and handing plucking them. Not only was the going unbearably slow, I didn't even have the benefit of free money appearing out of nowhere as I got rid of the grass. After my back, neck, and calves started to throb more painfully I asked to be done. The grass is roughly halfway plucked, and I feel unease that we might have to repeat this stupid exercise tomorrow. After a couple solid hours, this is the result of our labor:
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