The lawn ranger...

Economists and other aficionados of game theory are familiar with the idea of the Prisioner's Dilemma. The idea is that people could often have a better outcome if they worked together, but often don't, making people worse off.

I think this applies to mowing the lawn - if everyone in my neighborhood didn't mow their lawn, nobody would be the guy with the bad lawn, and everyone would save time on lawn care. (Property values is another story). But once someone mows the lawn, everyone else has to, or risk being the bad neighbor.

So my next-door neighbor mowed his lawn yesterday, so I had to do mine today. Not that it's a huge deal - I can get it done in about 30 minutes, since it's a tiny patch of grass in front and back. I use this manual reel mower and an electric string trimmer. The reel mower is easy to use, and I don't have to worry about gas or anything. The house's previous owners actually left a gas mower, but I've never used it - it seemed like a hassle to maintain given how tiny my lawn is. The manual reel does the job - although it comes to a screeching halt if the tiniest of twigs gets caught in the tines.