The Parable of the Green Lawn Essay Example

the lawn each evening.

Not wanting to appear to be imitating his neighbor, Mr. Furious instructs his children to water his lawn at noon. The noon watering proves to be detrimental, so he decides to fertilize the remaining patches of grass. Because he wants to make up for the losses the noon watering caused, he applies the fertilizer at twice the recommended application rate. Most of the pathces of grass that escape being burned by the fertilizer, however, are eventually choked out by the weeds. After winning the wager with Mr. Furious, Ms.

Steady lounges on the deck enjoying her new grill, which she paid for with the money from the wager. Her lawn requires minimal maintenance, so she is free to attend to the landscaping. The combination of the lawn and landscaping also results in an award from a neighborhood committee that determines that her lawn is a true showplace. Mr. Furious still labors on his lawn. He blames the poor performance on his children’s inability to properly water the lawn, nonconforming grass seed, insufficient sunlight, and poor soil.

He claims that his neighbor has an unfair advantage and her success is based on conditions unique to her plot of land. He views the loss as grossly unfair, after all, he spends more time and money on his lawn than Ms. Steady does. He continues to complain about how expensive the seed is and how much time he spends moving the sprinkler around to the few remaining clumps of grass that continue to grow. But Mr. Furious thinks that things will be better for him next year, because he plans to

install an automatic sprinkler system and make a double-or-nothing wager with Ms. Steady.