The grass is always greener...

Recently, I published a column listing some of my pet peeves and random thoughts. Since that time, I’ve seen two people turn left on red, one friend driving with her dog on her lap, and received a photo from another friend vacationing in New Hampshire, showing off her new “This Car Climbed Mt. Washington” bumper sticker. Thank you all.

One response I received from that column offered up another random thought. A friend wrote, “What about those people who feel the need to keep their lawns watered despite the major water ban in town? It is like they have no idea how they can possible control the automatic sprinklers that were installed in their yard! This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves....those people who feel the rules do not apply to them.”

Great suggestion, but I hesitated to address it since several people in our town have private wells, thus allowing them to water to their heart’s content. Why make a big stink about scofflaws if the majority of folks are actually obeying the ban? I guess I’m one of those people willing to believe the best in other people, willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Except…I’m actually not one of those people (as much as I would like to be). Like my friend who made the suggestion, I do think that there are people in our town who don’t have private wells, but have decided to ignore the ban and continue to water their lawns. And now there’s proof.

My husband called my attention to an article in the Patriot Ledger last Friday about the water restrictions in our town, and several neighboring towns. There was even a handy table which listed the average daily use of water in each town, both before and after the ban. Some towns had reduced their water consumption by 22%, 33% and 36%. Now take a guess which town tied for last place, reducing their consumption by only 14%?

Yup. My town.

I’d like to be that person who gives others the benefit of the doubt and suggest that perhaps these people are taking several showers a day, or have a toilet that just keeps running and running no matter how much you jiggle the handle, or went on vacation and left the faucet in the sink drip-drip-dripping, but the green lawns sprinkled throughout my town tell me otherwise. I’d like to think that maybe these folks just don’t have the wherewithal to deactivate their sprinklers (or as my friend said, maybe they don’t know how!) But that would mean me being a non-judgmental type of person and folks, we just don’t live in that world.

So what should we do about this? Do we drop a dime on our neighbors when we see their sprinklers go off? Who do we call? The police? The DPW? Dateline NBC? (If Keith Morrison can’t frighten them into shutting off their sprinklers, no one can.} Do we form a neighborhood lawn watch? I can just picture it, like a scene from “Frankenstein”, but instead of villagers with pitchforks and axes we have residents with watering cans and Poland Spring bottles tied to their bodies. Perhaps we need to go all PETA on these people, throwing gallons of red paint to mark their pristine green lawns, like a big scarlet letter.

Or…maybe we do nothing. Wait it out. Let the wheels of justice turn at their own pace. Sooner or later, these people will be forced to pay for their wrongdoing.

When the water bill arrives.