As a homeowner for a number of years, I’ve done my share of mowing — push mowers, riding mowers, and as a kid, one with a turn radius so bad I had to convince myself it was a feature. With nearly two decades of Ohio lawns behind me, I still never managed the perfectly straight lines required to meet the standards of certain people I am married to.

Moving through Texas and Oklahoma over the last two decades, I’ve made my peace with the regional grasses — or at least stopped taking them personally. It doesn’t really matter if I have a beef with St. Augustine or Bermuda. Unless I want a yard full of wildflowers that the HOA would ban before they even bloomed, the grass has to get cut.

In Texas, I pushed a mower nearly every week and convinced myself I was good at it. St. Augustine has wide, flat blades that sprawl over the sidewalk and turn a “quick trim” into a full, sweat-soaked hour. Eventually, I had a moment of clarity: someone else could do this for money. I wasn’t great at trimming. I was worse at small-engine maintenance. And paying a crew for the season meant the yard got mowed while we were on vacation, without me making frantic calls and getting the “We don’t take temporary clients” rejection.

Oklahoma brought new grass and new logistics. Last year’s guy was ideal — $50 every two weeks, Venmo payment, maybe one conversation a month. Rain delay? We bumped the schedule. He went on vacation? Same. It was the perfect No Contact relationship: professional, low-maintenance, mutually beneficial. We understood each other completely and had almost no reason to speak.

He retired from the side hustle this spring — full-time fireman, finite Saturdays — and handed me three names on the way out. One was eliminated immediately for insisting on mowing every seven to ten days. Bermuda doesn’t grow that fast, and honestly, neither does my budget. The remaining two came down to one variable: the spring scalping charge. Bermuda grows low enough that a proper start to the season means shaving it down close to the dirt to clear out last year’s dead thatch. Both guys charged to scalp; one was discounted. That was the whole decision.

There was, however, one new wrinkle: my son. He recently bought a house on the street directly behind ours, and he has determined — much earlier in life than I did — that mowing is not for him. Whether this is genuine wisdom or a defense of his programming hands against mower vibration is still under debate. Either way, we were choosing together, which meant I had a co-signer on whatever call we made.

We will discuss the final decision tonight when he comes over for dinner. To scalp or not to scalp? Having gotten the scalp for the same $50 bi-weekly fee last year, I am hesitant pay extra. However, my bot friends say it is a good idea. Whatever happens, my son and I are going to get this decision done.

And if he decides to spend part of that Saturday installing a new ceiling fan for his dad, I’m certainly not going to argue with him.