I saw this commercial where a man rode around on his John Deere riding lawnmower. The man seemed happy. He had a beautiful lawn -- a lush acre or three of thick #009E00 grass ringed with regal trees and flowerbeds up by his big house. The lawn looked so good that it didn't look like it needed mowing, but that's none of my business.

At one point the man mowed along his fence and waved to his neighbor, who was mowing his beautiful lawn with his John Deere riding lawnmower. The neighbor nodded and waved back. Both men had excellent posture and a little gray hair around the temples. I imagined them finishing their yard work and having beers by the fence and talking about baseball. Maybe later they would grill some steaks on the deck and tell jokes (clean ones, of course). I think that's nice when neighbors spend time together.

Then the man mowed along the flowerbeds, and a tall woman with brown hair and matching brown eyes turned and smiled at him. The people who made the commercial had taken care not to make her too beautiful, but I thought she was awfully pretty. I think if a tall pretty lady smiled at me like that, I would put my John Deere lawnmower away and take here inside and mess up her brown hair a little, but the man just smiled back and kept mowing. Maybe he had already messed up her hair that morning, or maybe he and the tall lady were the kind of people who only do that sort of thing on Tuesday and Friday nights at 10:00 pm with the lights off, or maybe the man hadn't talked to his doctor yet about Levitra. I suppose I should shut my mouth until I get a tall wife of my own.

The man had purchased a very nice John Deere lawnmower. It was green with gold accents and a bright yellow seat. It had a big bag attachment so the man wouldn't have to get blisters on his hands or burn any calories raking the lawn. The man looked like he would spray the lawnmower with the hose after he finished mowing to keep it from getting caked with dead grass. He also looked like the sort of responsible owner who would drain all the oil before putting the lawnmower away for the winter, and would take it to the John Deere dealer at the first sign of trouble. The commercial announcer said that the lawnmower came with a 24-month limited warranty, so the man wouldn't have to worry if it broke down. And the man would be selling the lawnmower and buying a bigger and better one within 24 months anyway. That's how things work in America: people with big houses and tall wives buy shiny new things and then sell them to people like me after they've tired of them. I think that's right Christian of them.

Nothing Runs Like a Deere™

+posted by Lawrence @ 5/13/2004 11:01:00 PM