Ack!

So I did it again. I got busy (and a little lazy) and didn't post my story when I said I would. But after a reminder from "Anonymous" I got it done just now and am pleased to be posting it! It's not as refined and polished as I would like but considering I'm half asleep right now I think it's pretty good.

I hope you agree after you read it. The topic is...well I'll let you figure it out for yourself.

The Morrison’s lawn was one of the nicest greenest lawns on Fair Oaks Drive. Mr. Morrison would wake up every Saturday morning, drink his coffee, read the paper then head outside to cut the grass. His lawnmower was one of the more expensive kind. He couldn’t just have any low quality mower cutting his grass. After mowing he would trim the hedges and then bag all the clippings setting the bags neatly on the curb. Mrs. Morrison would come outside at exactly twelve o’clock to bring her husband an ice cold glass of lemonade while they both stood back and admired his hard work. The freshly cut green grass looked dazzling in the afternoon sunlight. After a few minutes the sprinklers would come on and gently shower each blade encouraging healthy growth.

  All the neighbors loved the Morrison’s yard. Mr. Johnson from next door would walk by and admire it shaking his head in amazement. The neighborhood children never let their soccer balls stray to the Morrison’s yard and even the dogs would not soil the healthy green grass.

  In fact the only ones who did not like Mr. Morrison’s dedication to mowing his lawn were the blades of grass themselves. Now you might be thinking that grass blades have no thoughts or feelings but that would be your mistake. People often hear their chattering but assume it’s the sound of locusts or crickets. However, if you really got down on their level you would hear them unmistakably conversing with each other. They had been discussing for a while now what they could do to stop themselves from being trimmed every week. You might wonder why the grass did not like to be trimmed. Think of it like a haircut. A haircut is necessary on occasion but if someone cut your hair every week you might become annoyed after a while.

  And so this is the state the grass found itself in. They were beginning to think they had no hope of overcoming the giant mower until one of the blades had an idea.

  “Why don’t we all duck when the mower comes to trim us?” he said to the other blades immediately around him. Obviously he could not speak loud enough for every blade to hear and so the idea took time to spread across the lawn. Slowly but surely each blade got to hear this new idea and they all agreed it was their best shot at stopping themselves from being trimmed.

  “We have to lay really flat on the ground so the mower blades can’t reach us at all,” one of the younger grass blades squeaked.

  Over the next few days it was agreed that the next time Mr. Morrison came out to mow his lawn, the blades would lay themselves flat on the ground as the mower  passed over them and then spring back up completely unharmed and untrimmed. The blades’ excitement grew more and more as Saturday got closer and finally it was the dawn of that fateful morning.

  Around eight o’clock, Mr. Morrison woke up, got dressed and went downstairs to read his paper and drink his coffee. After the last sip, he laid the paper down on the table and went outside to tend to his lawn. The grass blades quivered with excitement as they watched him pull out the mower. To a casual observer it would seem as though they were just blowing in the wind but really they were just too excited to keep still. This was the moment they had all been waiting for.

  Mr. Morrison wheeled the mower out onto the grass and started it up. All the blades watched carefully as the mower began to carve its path of destruction past the front porch. Holding their collective breath, they waited to see if the grass blades would spring up once the mower had passed over them. For a few seconds nothing happened. Then one brave blade poked its head up. He had been untouched by the mower and was as tall as ever. One by one the other blades began popping up as well. The grass cheered itself on watching happily as the mower passed harmlessly over each blade. This went on for about an hour as Mr. Morrison went back and forth down the lawn meticulously covering each foot apparently unaware that the grass he was mowing was no shorter than when he started. 

  When he had gone across the entire lawn, he turned the mower off and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Another perfect cut,” he said out loud, congratulating himself on a job well done. As he turned to look at his work however, the delight on his face changed to confusion. The grass looked no shorter at all. Lifting his sleeve to his eyes he wiped them thoroughly to clean out any sweat or dirt that may be affecting his vision.

  At second glace however, the grass looked the same. It was all just as long as it had been when he started. He glared at his lawnmower instantly blaming it for this horrible occurrence and set about finding the problem. After several hours of taking it apart and putting it back together, he could find nothing wrong with it. The sun was getting hotter, he was becoming sweatier and the grass was still no shorter.

  Though this was a stressful situation for Mr. Morrison the blades of grass were delighted with themselves for solving this dilemma. They watched with spiteful glee as Mr. Morrison fought with his lawnmower insisting there must be a problem with it but finding nothing. Finally he decided to test it out again and set about mowing a strip of grass next to the curb.

 “Duck!” the grass blades would squeal as they saw the mower blades approaching them. And Mr. Morrison would look behind him astounded that the blades were still standing. Feeling dejected, he turned off the mower and left it standing alone in the yard.

  Walking over to the porch he sat down on the stairs, put his head in his hands and stared at the lawn wondering what he had done wrong. The door opened just then and his wife came out with her customary glass of cold lemonade.

  “Here you go, darling. Your lemonade is ready,” Mrs. Morrison said. She held the glass out for her husband to take but quickly retracted it as she noticed the condition of the grass.

  “Oh I thought you had mowed the lawn by now,” she said, looking very bewildered. Mr. Morrison had never worked on the lawn past noon.

  “I did cut it,” he said, still staring with a dazed expression. His wife shook her head.

  “No, darling. The grass is just as long as it was this morning. It has not been cut at all. No lemonade till you finish the job,” she insisted, turning and walking away with the ice cold glass. Mr. Morrison sighed as he heard the door shut behind her.

  “I cut the grass,” he told himself.

  Mr. Morrison spent the rest of the day pouring over the owner’s manual for his lawnmower and checking each part for the tiniest flaw. He stooped down to observe the grass which of course held very still and didn’t utter a sound. Mr. Johnson from next door walked by and his usual amazement was replaced by a look of disdain.

 “You should cut your grass,” he yelled out to Mr. Morrison who pretended not to hear. Mrs. Morrison finally called her husband in for dinner but refused to give him lemonade.

  The grass blades rejoiced all night in their victory chattering freely and relishing the chance to grow taller over the next week. Things were finally looking up.

 For Mr. Morrison however, things only got worse.  The grass blades enacted their clever plan the following Saturday and the one after that so that after several weeks they had almost tripled in height. Mr. Morrison’s wife no longer brought him lemonade, Mr. Johnson looked the other way when he walked past the Morrison’s lawn, children carelessly kicked their soccer balls onto the grass and dogs went out of their way to soil it. Of course Mr. Morrison never figured out the grass’s secret and it’s said that if you walk by the Morrison’s front lawn on any given Saturday chances are you’ll see him kneeling next to his perfectly functional expensive lawnmower looking for a broken part and swearing that he cut the grass.