I watched my neighbor ride by my house this morning.  He had the whole family in the car.  Doubtless, he and his clan were headed toward church.  He is an ardent practitioner of the Nazarene religion.  As an adherent of the True Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I find him to be a misguided soul bound for Hades,  where he and his family will be slowly roasted in a pan upon a giant Amana range until the end of time.  Their screams will be the lamentations of the unrepentant.  It is sad, but it is his choice.  Free will, you know.  I would try to tell him, but I am sure my speech would fall unheard.  The Evil One has stoppered his ears and the eternal sizzling is his destiny.  I would feel worse about it if not for his mowing.

You see, my neighbor insists on mowing the ditch line in front of my house.  In fairness, this habit began before I was living here.  At that time, this house was inhabited by a single mother (my now wife) and my neighbor took this situation as an indication that she was unable to fully take care of herself (her being a little woman and all).  As noted, he is a very Christian man.  In an act of Christian charity, the neighbor took it upon himself to start mowing  the ditch.  I am sure he also petitioned the Republican government for tax relief of some sort.  The Arabs, after all, are not giving gas away these days.  Regardless, this act of kindness has become a habit.

Enter the MO.  Unlike my Christian brethren, who are hell bent on the taming of the wilderness, I have a rather laissez faire attitude toward lawn mowing.  In fact, it is my philosophy to mow as little as possible.  Grass- as well as ditch weeds- grows back.  Thus, the taming of one’s lawn is nothing more than a Sisyphean chore guaranteed to end in futility.  In the mind of the MO, better to bend to the inevitable than continue to push the stupid rock up the mountain.  Then again, few men have the logical nature of the MO.  It is my curse.

The upshot is that this fat bastard is intent on keeping the ditch under his Christian control.  The war on thistle and milkweed ain’t got no end.  “Onward Christian soldiers, mowing as to war.  With the logo of John Deere, going on before.”

My neighbor’s presumption has inspired thoughts of sabotage on the part of the MO.  I have considered shuttling some baseball sized rocks into his path or perhaps the strategic placement of some sort of incendiary device.  Having to replace his mower blades would surely temper his ditch mowing ardor.  Alas, my wife is cool to the idea of sabotage.  She seems to think that this neighbor, while misguided, is doing no real harm.

To this sentiment I say “balderdash!”  What of the mighty monarch butterfly?  If you are unaware, the numbers of monarch butterflies have fallen precipitously in the past few years.  There are many reasons why, but foremost (at least in my learned opinion) is the dwindling of available milkweed.  Monarchs cannot survive without milkweed.  It it what their caterpillars eat.  Ergo, my fatassed neighbor is starving the children (of monarch butterflies).  What kind of jackass would starve children?  A Boy Scout troop leader, that’s who.  On a riding lawnmower.

Worry not, faithful reader.  The MO is biding his time.  Even as I write this, I am praying to the FSM for guidance.  The way it looks now, this guidance could be one of two things.  The first thought is to put a curse on my neighbor, much like the one the gypsy put on the man in the book Thinner.  Except I want my neighbor to contract syphilis.  Dick Rot Away I will say as I touch his forearm.

The second idea is to just throw a bunch of sixteen penny nails in the ditch.  I know the nails thing lacks the subtlety of a syphilis curse, but I find it more expedient.  It takes a while for syphilis to kick in and there is still a fair amount of penicillin in the world.  Fucking Fleming.

If those measures fail, I will just out him relative to his closeted homosexuality.

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