Grass.

I really, really hate this time of year in the US.

The weather is insanely hot (in fact, I laughed at my parents the other day complaining about the 'sweltering' 78 degrees they were having to put up with), it's also extremely humid…and if the sun's not beating down on the earth like a drunk on his red-headed stepchild, it's absolutely pissing down with rain.

Know what this means? It means that the grass grows about three feet per hour.

What makes it worse is we don't have a riding lawn mower and I know for a fact that when I cut the grass with a push-mower, I cover over 5 miles just to get about 80% of the grass cut.

In early spring this isn't a problem, in fact, I quite enjoy it. It's good exercise, and I take my iPod with me, put on a pair of ear-defenders over my earbuds so I can actually hear it over the mower engine and just zone out.

In Summer, it's just about impossible. I have what can politely be called an 'Irish Complexion'. Non-politely it can be called a "Holy fucking shit that guy's pale as a motherfucker complexion'. I do not tan. I have never tanned. All I do is burn, turn bright red then go back as luminously pasty-white as before. I don't need long exposure to the sun either. Without factor 100 sunblock, I can get noticeably sunburned in under 15 minutes.

Just to add insult to injury, my diabetes meds make this a hundred times worse. There's warnings all over the bottles to avoid direct sunlight while on the medication…and that's a warning for normal people…not people who's skin appears to be made of translucent parchment like mine.

Now, the savvy out there already think they've found the solution to my problem. If it's so damn hot, why don't I just cut the grass first thing in the morning or just before sunset to avoid the heat?

Well, first thing in the morning is a no-go. First of all, Sunny works nights and wouldn't appreciate me circling the house running the lawnmower less than an hour after she gets into bed. Even if she didn't work nights, until the sun's been up for a while (IE, until it gets ball-toastingly hot), the grass is absolutely soaked with dew…which means cutting about 6 square feet of grass at a time before having to stop the mower and remove the clump of wet mulch that's blocking the gap on the side of the mower that the cut grass is expelled from.

Last thing in the evening? Well, I don't have to worry about wet grass clogging the mower, but it was still 96 degrees here at 10pm last night. Sunburn is no longer an issue, but heat exhaustion is.

Of course, a riding lawn mower would help an awful lot, but the only people I know who own one are in-laws…and while they certainly look down their noses at me for not cutting the grass, the one or two times I've asked to borrow their mower they've reacted like I was a drunk 14 year old asking if I could borrow their brand new Ferrari to use as the getaway vehicle in a daring daylight robbery.

Fuck it…the grass can grow until the weather decides to be reasonable.