Keeping up appearances

Now that the weekend is almost here, it's time to take a break from our travel-related discussions and talk about a troubling weekend-related topic: weeds. Of course, weeds are a troubling topic not only on weekends, but that is when you run out of excuses to ignore them.

Now, keep in mind that a single yard can really make the rest of the neighborhood look bad. For instance, if everyone in your row of homes has weeds the size of Mt. Kilimanjaro growing around their porch and front door, and you have no weeds, you are not a team player. You are making everyone else look like slackers, with your weedless brick walk and your smooth, unhindered porch steps. Your home abruptly breaks the lovely, unbroken line of weed-infested yards.

Do not think that your spotless yard will incite your neighbors to get out their weed whackers and bottles of weed killer. It will only incite them to hate you. And for goodness' sake, do not organize "outdoor cleanup days" and expect people to spruce up not only their own bit of space but community spaces as well. If your neighbors do not care about their own yard, what makes you think they will care about patches they do now own? They want only to be left alone, in peace, behind their wall of weeds, possibly with an old couch or refrigerator.

Also, avoid the temptation to get your neighbors to clean up their act by sending little "helpful" e-mail messages, or notes tied to their doors, with tips on how to make a yard look nicer. This will only make your neighbors hate you even more. After a while, these messages will go into their spam file or wastebasket and will never be read, so you are just wasting your time.

Your best course of action, if you want to be considered a community member in good standing, is to let nature take back your yard. Let those weeds grow. Soon they will be tall enough to hide a couch, on which you can relax and enjoy your weekends.