Julie Barrett has been trying to get her husband to mow the grass at The All England Lawn Tennis Club ever since Wimbledon began. Roger Barrett, who’s worked as a groundsman there for six years, is supposed to mow the grass once a week as part of his job description. However, he usually only gets around to doing it after his wife’s nagging becomes too much. “It’s always do this, do that. Take care of this, mow that,” said Roger. “I told her I’d take care of it but she just picks and picks.” Julie said this wasn’t a problem until several tennis players called her to complain that they were losing balls in the weeds along the baseline.

Roger promised to mow the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s grass last Saturday, but after he woke up at noon, went and got Burger King  and watched tv all afternoon, it was too dark. Sunday he played 18 holes of golf, and was too tired to get up off the couch. Now he figures he might as well wait until this weekend to do it—probably Saturday. But maybe Sunday. He says he doesn’t understand why the All England Lawn Tennis Club can’t just pay one of the neighbor kids to do it.

ORIGINALY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 30, 2004 IN VOLUME 2 ISSUE 23