Hey, you! Yes, you - who finally sold your charming little downtown apartment on the fourth floor of a run-down building to escape the filth and stench of the city and move into your dream home in the middle of a green paradise, let me give you some advice on how to blend in with your new rural community.
Before you even move in, make sure your contractor razes the entire lot to the ground. Centuries-old walnut trees, bountiful cherry trees, beautiful rose bushes, tall pines - be gone! If by some chance they left anything resembling life, cut it down, uproot it, douse it in herbicide.
Now, pave everything over. If you can’t cover it with paving stones, pour concrete over it. Any grass that somehow survives? Smother it with white gravel. Don’t bother maintaining it—let it grow wild so that next year it looks like the abandoned yard of a Chernobyl daycare.
For the front yard, go with tasteful crushed stone. Stick a few scrawny little thuja saplings in between because, you know, greenery is important. They’ll surely thrive in the 90°C heat radiating from the stones. If the pebbles roll into the street, whatever you do, don’t sweep them back.
For the remaining 30 square meters of lawn, get yourself a $1,000 robotic lawnmower and install an automatic irrigation system. By next year, you’ll realize even that’s too much effort and replace it all with artificial turf.
If, by some oversight, a fruit tree remains in front of your house, let the fruit rot on the ground. Then cut the damn thing down.
Request a property protection order from the local authorities because your neighbor’s tree dares to drop leaves onto your carefully manicured lawn.
Complain about how unbearably hot it is. Install a $5,000 shading system and hose down your paved yard at least three times a day.
Post outraged rants about how people dare to mow their lawns, hammer nails, let their roosters crow in the morning, or their dogs bark in the evening. How dare tractors drive past your house? What’s with all the circular saws buzzing? Investigate the best ways to drive birds away from your property because their singing keeps you awake.
Be appalled that there are no yoga, pilates, or spinning classes in town.
Complain about the unbearable number of mosquitoes, bugs, and creepy crawlies. Exterminate them all.
On your morning commute (back to the city), while stuck in traffic, post an angry status update about how people should really use public transportation because you can’t get anywhere.
Complain that there’s nothing happening in town. If there is an event, complain about the noise, wave around the local noise ordinance, and demand a decibel measurement.
If you actually attend an event, make sure to post a long rant the next day about how awful the organization was, how disappointing the main act was, how the food was subpar, and most importantly, emphasize how the whole experience was beneath you.
Buy three tomato plants and put them in pots. In the fall, tie a checkered scarf around your head, put on an apron, peel the label off a store-bought jam jar, place it next to three supermarket tomatoes, and take some aesthetic selfies for Instagram.
For self-validation, start a TikTok channel where you convince the poor city-dwellers you left behind that country life is absolutely amazing and that you could never go back to the concrete jungle.
