Weed Management and Destruction
My backyard is getting much weedier than it usually is. It’s leading to nightmares and strange slugs crawling around inside my refrigerator. My first instinct was to blame the weeds on groundhogs that were slacking off and not doing their weeding duties in my yard. But then I realized that groundhogs should not be my first line of defense against weeds. No, I need something stronger.
Something like begrimed doughboys that will stand guard in my lawn 24 hours a day, all senses on alert to the slightest sign of increasing weed activity. At the first hint of weeds, they should get on the emergency phone to the Team of Alabaster Frogmen.
When the Team of Alabaster Frogmen arrives, they can declare war on the incipient weeds and take them out with their extreme — yet soft and delicate — deweeding methods. As they dance on my lawn in celebration of the weeds’ defeat, I will be happier than I have ever been in my life, for the weeds have been destroyed.
I’ll offer the frogmen payment and all sorts of wealth and riches, for this is the custom, but I know they will not accept them. The chance to expel weeds from a stranger’s lawn is all that they could ever ask for, and money and gifts would only destroy their wholesomeness and opacity. And once a frogman has a destroyed opacity, they are useless. They may as well be taken out back and shot to put them out of their misery, for they will never deweed again.
So while I will make the customary offer of riches in payment, I know my offer will be refused. Then the alabaster frogmen will depart to their mysterious land of grainy tortoises where they live, the begrimed doughboys will again take up their guard duty over my lawn, and I will return to sleep. No longer will I be troubled by nightmares and slugs, for my lawn will be completely weed-free.
Yes, that is what I should do. So long weeds, you are no match for my new plan!
Do I feel even a little bit bad for taking the weeds out so effectively? Is it unfair for attacking them before they even take hold, before they can even arm themselves for the fight? Is it immoral to defeat an unarmed opponent so severely?
These are questions that will have to be addressed by the courts in the future. For now I can only kill the weeds first and let the Weed God sort them out later. I can’t be bothered with complex judicial questions on the legalities of siccing the frogmen on weeds before they’re even fully grown.
After all, this is war, and all’s fair in war, right?