Thursday, July 7, 2016

A Completely Kid-Friendly Post About Weeds

The other day I received a letter from my homeowner's association threatening me asking me nicely to remove the weeds that had grown up on the side of my house lest I incur the wrath of Thanos am required to pay a small fine. They even sent me a helpful picture in case I had forgotten what the side of my house looked like.
Not the actual picture, but you get the idea
I removed the weeds, but that got me thinking about the nature of weeds and why we are all so bent on destroying them. I mean, why do we value the other, non-weed portions of our lawns and gardens so much in comparison? Like, take grass, for example. Grass is so notoriously high-maintenance. If I forget to water the lawn for a day or two, the grass is immediately all, like, aaaaagggghhhh and it shrivels up and dies and leaves empty brown spots in my yard. But the weeds are like, "Hey, no worries, bro, it's cool. We're all good here. Water whenever you feel like it. Or don't. Whatever."

Aren't we supposed to be conserving water? I think we are, in which case the weeds are clearly the more desirable denizens of our suburban landscapes. Those things grow like crazy, even without water and in the ninety-degree-plus summer temperatures that absolutely devastate the other flora. They also don't need to be fed with the expensive, chemical-filled fertilizers that, when sprinkled all over our lawns, pose obvious threats to things like pets, feral rabbits, and various types of small defenseless children.*

So why do we hate them so much? (The weeds, that is, not the small children. Remember, this is a kid-friendly post.) Is it because they're ugly? Are we so superficial and judgmental that we have entire industries built around killing these laid-back, easy-to-handle plants? I say we all get rid of our water-sucking, fertilizer-demanding, pretty green patches of grass and replace them with fields of dandelions (which, by the way, were considered to be beautiful not that long ago), buttercups, and broadleaf plantain. I would take the initiative and do it on my own, except that I don't really feel like getting vaporized by the Infinity Gauntlet paying a fine any time soon.

* That is unless, of course, they don't

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