Lawn Sprinklers

The sprinkler is a singularly suburban, middle class institution. The upper class have their pools (or club memberships). Their children plunge into the pool lathered in sun screen, adding to the oil slick sealing the chlorinated water inside. The lawn in a lower class family is sacred or shit. To those who worship it, the lawn is groomed to show the glory of their sacred shrine to the great plains. The rest don't give it a second thought. Water is too expensive to waste on weeds. The middle class sits somewhere in between. The sprinkler is the muse of August's children. They fulfill their deepest innocent desires in the sprinkler. Its candy for the sense of touch.

A little background: According to Wikipedia, lawns were originally pastures or parks that grazing animals kept "trimmed" by feeding off the grass. With the invention of the mower in the early 1800s, lawns became a location of leisure. The rise of suburbs as a response to overcrowded cities (especially after WWII) made the lawn a reflection of vanity. How Products Are Made notes that the desire to maintain a lawn as a hobby forced cities to create a water delivery system to accommodate these hobbyists. With the development of a practical domestic watering system in late 1800s, suburbia was handed a new cultural expectation: part of living in a neighborhood meant a carefully groomed lawn. The fun of playing in a sprinkler is a byproduct of this cultural expectation.

The way a child engages a sprinkler reflects on that child's personality. The patient and frugal child makes quick trips through the scattered spray of water. He delights in the perforated thrill of drops rapidly cooling her skin in a polka dot pattern. He will pause between trips (depending on his endurance level) and savor the anticipation of his next sprint. The child who entrenches herself in the stream cannot stand the anticipation, abhors the wait, longs for the experience, so she sets herself right in the line of fire and gets her fill.

You also have the reluctant and faint hearted child who shields himself--timidly approaching the water with back turned--and the asshole child who seizes the sprinkler and, as a show of absolute power, turns it on the other children.

I was never the timid child, sometimes the asshole, usually the one planted in the stream. I also loved to root out my Christmas presents each December because I couldn't wait until the big day. Life is meant to be experienced. What is the point of sitting around anticipating what is to come when we can submerge ourselves in the moment?


Sources:

Wikipedia
Suburb
Lawns

How Products are Made
Sprinklers

Photo via gapplewagen