This is Phoebe, taking over my dad’s blog to get something off my chest:

I hate to be a hater, BUT I THINK GRASS SUCKS! I’ve heard nice things about lawns and fields in the past, but I didn’t have to actually touch any of it. When they created urban parks, they put in plenty of paved spaces and concrete playgrounds in a concerted effort to appeal to city kids like myself, which they balanced with some grassy areas to appeal to “nature lovers.” But now there’s more and more grass starting to appear everywhere.

For instance, right near my apartment building, there’s a big grassy area in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Yesterday my mom and dad set me down there, so I could crawl around a bit or even practice “cruising” against the low wall which abuts it. But the instant I touched the turf, I just started to cry. Granted, it is “spring,” which is probably the most intense growing period for natural things like flowers and trees and the like, but it’s crazy out there: grass, grass, grass, everywhere you look! I can’t say enough how unpleasant it is to feel those sharp individual blades on my delicate little hands.

And today my parents brought me to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden! They wheeled me onto this big green expanse and just sat down, plop! in the middle of it. I wasn’t having any of it, even thought my dad plucked some individual blades to show me how “harmless” they were. To me, nothing about grass is appealing. It’s all natural, and green, and multi-faceted. And how can something be both sharp and soft—at the same time?! Sure, I saw lots of other kids running and rolling around on the lawn, seeming to have a good time. But even if I had seen, say, another nine-month-old I knew, that lawn was no environment in which to bite another kid’s arm or drool on their toys.

So now I know I can skip this grass stuff in the future and just stick to safe places like my living room rug or the kitchen linoleum. If nothing else, the experience reminds me why cities were created, and how anachronistic (and insulting!) grass in urban areas is in terms of its attempt to bring “nature” to the civilized world.