South Dakota humorist Dorothy Rosby finally admits it: she covets her neighbor’s sprinkler system.

I leave my house in the dawn’s early light wearing only my SpongeBob jammies and my bedroom slippers. It’s a beautiful morning. The birds are just starting to sing, but I’m not enjoying it. My neighbor’s sprinkler system is chirping too. His lawn looks like a forest green shag carpet. Mine looks like matted dog hair.

My sprinkler system is a hundred feet of hose and a rotating, pulsating gizmo (similar to the one above from the Home Depot catalogue) I bought at a garage sale a few years back. And I would rather pour green concrete all over my lawn than haul it around my yard. But haul it I must—if I can find it. I wander across my crunchy lawn—are lawns supposed to crunch—peering into the dim light. Where did I water last? When did I water last?

I trip over the hose, pick myself up, and follow it to the sprinkler. On those rare occasions I remember to water, I start on the driest spots. Unfortunately, the green ones dry up while I’m trying to revive the brown ones. For me, lawn watering is an endless act of triage.

It’s still too dark to tell which spots are the brownest, but there are so many of them lately, it shouldn’t be hard to hit one wherever I plant the sprinkler. I decide to start in front of the house. At least I’ll look like a responsible homeowner from the street.

I drag the hose across the yard, feeling like a draft horse while the neighbor’s sprinkler system ticks away in the background. He can’t possibly have the upper body strength I have—or would have if I watered as often as I should.

I make a wide swath on the lawn until I run out of hose. Wait! How can that be? Oh, I see. I’ll have to backtrack around that cottonwood tree. Dang! Did I just wipe out my sedum?

I finally pick a spot in the front yard, carefully place the sprinkler and go to the faucet to turn it on. I’ll be darned. I’ve set it perfectly—for watering the driveway.

I wait. I watch. Then I dash for the sprinkler at the exact moment it’s spraying away from me. At least, it was spraying away from me when I started dashing. 

I pick up the sprinkler and wrestle it back and forth in an effort to get more water on my lawn and less on the driveway—and me. I’m glad no one else is up. From a distance I must look like I’m wrestling with a wet wildcat and it’s winning.

I finally get the sprinkler lined up and I quickly back away. My backside is still dry and I’d like to keep it that way. Just then someone says, “Good morning.” I jump and turn to see Mr. Sprinkler System standing on his front step with his newspaper. Mine is lying in a wet heap on my driveway. “Nice PJs,” he says.

I’m about to make a witty retort about squandering precious moisture on a vain, wasteful luxury. Instead I let out a little yelp as the sprinkler squanders more of it down my back.  

I curse my neighbor under my breath. May his sprinkler system break down and flood his basement. May dandelions take over his lush lawn. May dogs from all over town find it pleasant for doing their business on.

I head to the house to take a shower which seems redundant. But moments later I’m standing under the warm spray praying for rain and forgiveness and wondering why I ever chose to live next door to a guy with a lawn that looks like a golf course. It’s true. The grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. I wish my neighbors could say that.  

 Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available on Amazon and Rapid City at Mitzi’s Books.