I love my husband. We have a great relationship, and I’m not just saying that. We seem to have the partnership/mutual respect/roles thing figured out. We have our little disagreements here and there, and we haven’t had any major fights.

That said, we have had the same recurring fight for years. I call it The Fight. It’s about the yard. I know, it’s stupid. But that doesn’t mean it ceases to continue. It’s one of those things about which I don’t think we’ll ever agree. Ever.

See, my husband is quite anal when it comes to his yard. Join that with our area’s use of non-native grass that drinks a lot of water and a major drought, and you have a recipe for water bills that are budget busters. Even with imposed water restrictions, the bite hurts.When I suggest cutting back, I get this whole math formula about zones and times and 20 minutes this and 30 minutes that and 3 AM, blah, blah, blah. So we get to enjoy utility bills that are at least twice as high as any other time of the year.

I need to back up a sec. I don’t think I clearly explained the degree of my husband’s anal retentiveness towards the yard. When we moved in, there were dead spots in the backyard from the previous owners’ dog peeing on it. He focused on that pretty exclusively until the spots were gone. No big deal. Then, crab grass moved in. Then, some other kind of grass mixed in. There was aerating, fertilizing, putting various kinds of things that you sprinkle on grass to make it grow, an almost catastrophic lawn loss due to bad math, and 3 x 3 x 3 cubes of sod brought in to nurseries for diagnosis. The grass must be cut to specified lengths. Sprinkler heads are closely examined, maintained, and replaced immediately when needed. But the creme de la creme of the psycho landscaping behavior is the screwing of the yard.

Calm down, it’s not what you think. At least I don’t think it is.

Like many homeowners, our yard often gets populated by dandelions. Yes, they make tools called “dandelion diggers” to remove the weeds. Yes, there are special herbicides that exist for this purpose. My husband doesn’t use those, though. He goes outside with a really long screwdriver to dig them up. He has to do this repeatedly because the weeds are so prevalent. I’ll never forget when my son was about two, he grabbed his little toy screwdriver and followed Daddy out to the yard, believing that was the primary use of the tool.

You can love your yard, but don’t love your yard.

When you put this much effort into something, you tend to not spare any expense. Ergo, the water bills. I’m getting smarter, though. I’ve started to save a bit during the rest of the year to prepare for the season of us becoming the water company’s bitch. Maybe that will lessen the irritation I feel resulting from The Fight. In the meantime, I am thankful that my husband cares enough about the appearance of our house to make it look great, and I’m more thankful that this is the most serious fight we have. Because it really is stupid.