As you know from my previous posts, I live in a very small neighborhood, both in the sense of population and my postage stamp-sized piece of this earth. I’ll be honest; it doesn’t take a whole lot to upkeep this lot. By the time I mow and weed-wack the “estate”, an hour may have gone by. But that is my hour. The kids may be screaming and crying and my wife may be griping about something else I forgot to do before I started mowing (I do that a lot), but I can’t hear a thing except my 12-horse, 22inch Craftsman mower.

That is my time to kind of check out.

We all need that time to forget about everything that may be going wrong in our world. Some check out by doing yoga, reading, jogging or other crazy things that I have no interest in. My yard is my Zen and it is time just between the green turf and me. At least that is what I thought until last weekend.

While I am mowing my piece of heaven and making sure that every last dandelion and thistle is no more, I also listen to my Pandora radio station, usually something along the lines of Jason Aldean. I should clarify that I don’t just listen, I sing my heart out.  Never in a million years did I think that anyone could hear me over the mower chopping away at my always too tall fescue.

Then last weekend my back door neighbor took his turn at the weekly ritual and fired up his mower. As he was mowing I heard something a little bit strange through my windows, so I stepped out onto the back deck to see what it was. It was what I now refer to as mower-o-key, as he was belting out a Pink Floyd song. I was laughing at first, then it didn’t take me long to realize that I too was putting on a show for the neighborhood every time I fired up the mower and the mp3 player.

If my neighbor and I ever happen to hit the deck at the same time I may throw in a little Brooks and Dunn (I’d be Ronnie, of course). Check your Ticket Master outlet for our next show. NO REFUNDS, no matter how off key we are.