I know what you are thinking. You think “Getting Grass in Spain” will be about marijuana. Well, it isn’t. However, since your thoughts have wandered in that direction, I will tell you about the time I visited a cannabis club in Alicante.
Those who know me may be surprised to learn that I deigned to set foot in such a den of iniquity. However, while an ascetic, I am not judgmental. I have many friends who smoke marijuana (or, as the kids like to say, “grass”). One of those friends asked if I wanted to join him the next time he visited a cannabis club.
You cannot enter a cannabis club unless you are a member, or have been invited by a member. This was my chance to study the dark underbelly of Spanish culture. No amateur anthropologist, such as myself, would refuse that invitation.
Once there, my friend introduced me to the club’s owner, Vincent. Vincent is a Dutch man, but he is not from Dutchland. There is no such place. The Dutch are from The Netherlands, but they call themselves “Dutch” because “Netherlander” sounds vaguely sexual.
Vincent promptly told my friend that he was recently arrested and indicted for, among other things, money laundering. The cannabis club seemed to be a cash business and I immediately presumed Vincent guilty of all charges. You may think that unfair; but, and you should trust me on this, Vincent looked guilty.
Spanish law sanctions cannabis clubs. The clubs may sell users (“potheads”) marijuana, and the herb may be smoked in the club. Customers are supposed to leave their unused “stash” there. An attendant will keep the “stash” in a locker until the marijuana addict’s next visit.
I asked Vincent, for purely anthropological reasons, whether it is legal to grow marijuana on one’s own property. He said, “Yes, it is legal, as long as nobody sees you doing it.”
I laughed, a spontaneous outburst inspired by the criminal defendant’s keen wit, but stopped when I saw Vincent’s confused and mildly hurt expression. Apparently Vincent’s statement of the law was spot-on. It is legal to grow marijuana for personal consumption as long as neighbors and passersby cannot see the weed. The idea is that we are kings of our own castles, but Spanish youth might be corrupted by the sight of marijuana growing in window boxes.
I digress. As I said, this article is not about marijuana. It is about my effort to produce a perfect lawn.
Our yard is about 175 square meters (about 1800 square feet). When we bought the property the lawn was populated by three palm trees, a giant yucca, an oleander, and two leaf-bearing evergreens. And tons of crabgrass.
I immediately installed a pop-up sprinkler system and hired a gardener to throw down a layer of fertile soil and lots of grass seed. In about a month it looked great. In three or four months it was July and half the grass was dead. That’s when the crabgrass took over.
The next year I repeated the process, but this time I made sure the new grass (supposedly) would tolerate the brutal Spanish sun. In a month or two the lawn was looking good. Then it was July and again the crabgrass took over.
Throughout the summer little puffs of seeds, similar to dandelion puffs, popped up and spread millions of crabgrass embryos all over my lawn. Every day I tried to abort the reproductive process by removing the puffs, but it was a losing battle and I succeeded only in expanding my repertoire of bad words.
Denise encouraged me to just enjoy crabgrass. This, to me, was like telling Ukrainians to just enjoy the Russians. Hell no. I would destroy everything before ceding one inch to the invaders. And that is what I did.
I hired Fabian, a man from Ecuador, to end the war once and for all. Fabian and his crew removed all existing vegetation, flattened the surface, sprayed herbicide, laid down some sand, and then covered all those horrible crabgrass babies with a thick carpet of artificial grass. I rejoiced at the thought of widespread crabgrass infanticide.
Does that make me sound evil? I love all humans, but I hate crabgrass. I like that I no longer have to worry about watering or fertilizing or weeding or sowing, but mostly I love knowing that my enemy’s progeny is entombed under a layer of Astroturf.
Yeah, that does sound evil.
If only there was something that could make me a little more mellow.