Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 16:53:56 -0600 From: Nate Williams <nate@sri.MT.net> To: terry@lambert.org Cc: chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: The lawn-mower story Message-ID: <199606072253.QAA01145@rocky.sri.MT.net>
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My wife and I have a deal. We both 'work' on our lawn. I mow the lawn, she trims it. We both agree to stay out of each other's way because if we try to do it at the same time there are conflicts. Either I'm in her way or she's in mine at least part of the time. In order for this to work, one of us has to do *all* of the job in one part of our yard before the next person does the job, or else we end up with patches of grass that don't get mowed. Today I decide to mow the lawn. Normally, I do pretty well, and finish the entire lawn before I put the mower away. And, vice-versa normally my wife does a pretty good job and does all the trimming before putting away her trimmer. And, a couple of times (rarely) we've gotten in each other's way, but after working it all out (one of us gets kicked out of the yard until the other finishes) things pretty much work out. However, I'm a lazy guy today and I don't finish my end of the bargain, and I only mow half of the lawn, then I put my mower away to go watch the NBA finals. My wife isn't much of a basketball fan, so she decides to go out and do the trimming. Being the nice person she is (she married me, so she has *lots* of those sorts of qualities to put up with me) she doesn't say anything, but does her trimming as best as she can. Now, the lawn looks like crap because I didn't finish my job, but at least my wife did the best she could do from her end. And, I admit that it's my fault the lawn is ugly (ie; broken). My neighbor is a normally a pretty good engineer, and he proposed a solution to our crappy looking lawn. He claims that if my wife and I lock all the entrances to the lawn while we're working it'll make my lawn look better. Now, I'm thinking to myself, "Maybe I'm missing something, but the only problem thing that will do is keep my wife out of my hair while I'm mowing", but that doesn't happen very often. However, it doesn't solve the problem of me not finishing what I started before putting away the mower, which is *really* the reason my lawn looks like crap. Now, I could see my neighbors solution working if somehow I could be forced to finish the lawn before I put the mower away, but that requires someone (besides me) making sure the lawn is mowed and motivation for me to finish what I started. But, generally speaking there aren't alot of folks willing to babysit me who can come over whenever I mow that also can motivate me to finish it when I don't want to. Herein lies the rub: I have to trade-off the stigma of having a crappy looking yard because it's partially mowed, or have a situation where I'm forced against my will to do something I really don't have time to do. Or, worse yet I can just forget mowing my yard because it's too much hassle to get anything done. What to do, what to do..... Nate
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