Grass, which requires so much continual maintenance, is itself an interesting choice for middle-class suburbia. At some point yards (and gardens) were a status symbol in that you must have money to keep it nice. Now it’s all false. We cut our own lawns, we mend our own fences, we tend our own garden, and still we project our satisfaction with it. The outward sign has not changed (at least in spirit) but the signified has turned inward. It seems that when we take pride in a yard we tend ourselves, while initially it may be a false pride (connected to its false representation of economic status), it must necessarily, with continued work, become an inward pride, a pride in ourselves to the labor we perform.