Many years ago, when I was going to school in Rome, one of my professors assigned Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes to read over spring break. In addition to being annoyed at having to tote a heavy book through Europe, I quickly discovered that I hated the book. I can't understand how people love it, or the musical Man of La Mancha. I stopped reading it less than halfway through, then read just the end. It did me no harm, I got an A. Why do I hate it, and what does it have to do with gardening? Here's the explanation I gave the boy and the girl when "Don Quixote" came up as an answer to a Quizbowl question:
Don Quixote enters a new town. He mistakes X for Y. He attacks X. He gets his butt kicked. Sancho Panza has to pick and patch him up. They leave town and enter a new town. He mistakes X for Y. Repeat ad nauseum.
Yes, this was the first book I abandoned because of a character too stupid to be at large (CTSTBAL). From then on, any book with a CTSTBAL as a main character goes unfinished by me. But I digress.
The point is that I refuse to play that role, I will not keep doing the same stupid thing over and over in the garden. I will dream possible dreams. I spent an inordinate amount of time pulling black medic out of the driveway beds this spring.
Finally, after a couple of years of battling black medic on the south side of the driveway, I'm changing my tactics and smothering the mess.
There's barely any lawn left anyway.
My Very Indugent Spouse was on board for the project when I described it, that all the weeds would be smothered, and then grass seed sown to create a new lawn. Then he saw the extent of the project as I started laying down the newspapers, and he asked if I was "going to do all that and it'll be like that all summer?" Yes, I am and yes it will. I have to. If I don't kill it all, it will just come back, and I'm not Sisyphus.