Goodbye, Earl

Every subdivision in America has at least one Neighbor with a Park for a Front Yard. Ours was Earl.

Earl spent hours trimming and pruning and weeding and aerating and sweeping and clipping and mulching and, very occasionally, crouching and enjoying his Park/Yard. He mowed his grass in a certain length and direction so that it rippled in the wind like a lush, green ocean. His Bradford Pear trees were the envy of the neighborhood, blooming with gusto every spring. The only problem… Earl was an asshole.

When Earl was on vacation a few months ago, someone had the gall to mow a portion of his lawn without first asking his permission. Earl became the grand inquisitor upon his return, questioning each of his neighbors as to whether they saw “suspicious activity” in his Park/Yard while he was gone. Clearly, one of the many landscaping services that come through our neighborhood had made a mistake, a mistake most neighbors would be glad to have happen to them. Not Earl. He seemed to think his yard was maliciously trimmed by someone seeking revenge. And revenge in our neighborhood was entirely possible.

You see, Earl had made liberal use of the ear of the neighborhood Homeowners’ Association President. So in our neighborhood, if a car was parked in front of a home too long (like, 45 minutes or longer), Earl complained and the neighbor received an official letter from the president, sternly threatening a beheading if said car wasn’t parked in the garage where it belonged. Before long, letters were sent out about brush piles, fireworks displays, barking dogs and bratty children. The neighborhood was a small one, so it wasn’t long before nearly every resident I talked to had received a written warning, all thanks, I’m fairly certain, to Earl.

My husband and I pulled together all the pitchforks and buckets of tar we could find, hoping to lead an “intervention” for our Eden-obsessed neighbor, but what with PTA meetings, soccer practices and “Desperate Housewives” viewings, our neighbors couldn’t settle on a date- so we were forced to find a more subtle form of deprogramming.

Our yard happened to be right across the street from Earl’s, which gave us views from our front windows that gave any Central Park apartment a run for its money. But the true beauty of this arrangement was that when Earl looked out of his windows, we made sure he saw chaos. Frenzy. Landscaping from hell.

Since our yard was cloaked in shade, our grass struggled to survive. A few of our hedges had already given up the battle and quietly held their leafless branches up in open admission of defeat. A new ping pong table won the bid for garage space, so our cars sulked and stalled in our driveway and out on the street. Year-round soccer practices led to homemade PVC goals taking up residence on our postage stamp-sized front lawn. The front step became an airing place for everything from cleats to diaper pails. And with three girls getting in and out of cars all day, our yard provided a convenient repository for hair bands, happy meal toys, colored pencils, ribbons and other feminine detritus. To top it all off, our invisible dog fence extended to all borders of our property, which meant that more often than not, our braying, bellowing beagle was calling out each and every person who dared to walk or drive down our street.

It took a year of carefully-choreographed zingers- a dropped gum wrapper here, a dead snake left out on a street grate there, and balls that too often made a trajectory straight for Earl’s manicured lawn. But Earl finally cracked. A few weeks ago, he and his wife drove their luxury sedan off into the sunset, never to return.

Today, a pleasant couple has taken up ownership of the Park/Yard. Within a week of Earl’s departure, the grass turned a pleasing shade of August brown. And just a few days ago, a landscaping company showed up and gave the lawn a buzz cut. Yes, I think our new neighbors will fit in just fine…