Dandelions in Westchester: Why My Neighbors Hate What Grows on My Lawn

Disclaimer: I am a dad living in Westchester, New York. The names of all people, but not all places, have  been changed to protect the innocent and me from the glares of my neighbors who are definitely not reading this blog. 

It's May, and our neighbors hate the dandelions claiming squatter's right next to the fire hydrant on the edge of our lawn. Our being the operative word here. Our meaning the lawn belongs to my wife, my three children, and me. Ours and not the Millers' whose lawn is three doors down,  across the street, and has a "hate has no place here" sign. I know this fact because Greg and Anne tell me on Sundays when they're up eight in the morning to walk Molly, their golden doodle, who is suffering from incontinence and continuously uses our lawn as his open air toilet. I just came out to get the New York Times. Yes, I still order a paper copy. 

The thing about Anne and Greg is that they don't say it out loud. That would not be nice. That would not be very neighborly. They find ways to talk around it, mentioning it when it has no place in whatever plotless story they're offering about the book club my wife and I  have not been invited to join (not that the I care, they don't even read the books). 

    "Our landscaping company is awful. Last week they sliced a section of our red hydrangea without asking," Anne mentions, as she wriggles around in her Lululemon yoga pants. I wonder if she has to pee.  

"How do you like your landscaping company?" she asks and then I follow her eyes to dandelions. I tell her pretty good, even though she knows very well that I don't have a landscaping company (I have a lawnmower that I bought during a Memorial Day sale at Costco), and she is unable to hide the disdain she has for flowers that I once used to bank wishes from. We make some more small talk about her children who both attend Cornell, one is in a frat, the other got rejected from all the frats he applied to, and then they leave, but not before Molly defecates on our driveway. 

I like my lawn.