So I went and bought Roundup..

No I didn't! I wouldn't. Even if my entire yard is filled with dandelions, I wouldn't go buy Roundup or any other herbicide for that matter. And the yard is filled with dandelions already, almost entirely. And it's driving me nuts. So I go and behead the flowers (before they turn into seeds) and sometimes I will manage to uproot an entire plant. Which still leaves only about a million more of them left in my yard. Sometimes I pluck away all the leaves hoping the plant will spend energy in putting forth new leaves instead of flowers and seeds. I don't know if this is really effective though. And we tried dumping a bunch of grass seeds onto the lawn hoping the grass will overcrowd the dandelions. So far, I haven't seen any new grass... I know I cannot eradicate dandelions from my lawn but it might be nice to have fewer of them.

Why this war on dandelions? I am not entirely sure. I think I am trying to prove something albeit very unsuccessfully. A friend of mine recently bought Roundup and other such stuff to maintain her lawn and I got very annoyed. Not to her face of course (because I am not like that). But privately, I vent to my husband.
"Now all the runoff from her lawn will enter the water supply and we'll be screwed!"
"Why only her lawn? Surely there are tons of other homes in this neighborhood alone that use all these chemicals. Why are you singling her out?" My husband asked reasonably.

He is right of course. And yet I feel disappointed. I wish I could go tell her to stop using that stuff. But is the alternative a dandelion filled yard? What right do I have to lecture my friend, unless I have a reasonably well maintained yard myself? And hence my war on dandelions...

Let's say hypothetically that I do manage to eradicate all my dandelions and I have a pristine well-maintained lawn and garden? Would I really feel any more confident about telling my friend what to do? I might but most likely, I wouldn't. 'None of my business' I might think. Or I might feel diffident about telling her to spend so much time in manual labour when a couple of sprays in a few minutes can do it.

But of course it is my business. It is everyone's business. We're all affected. But I am too scared to speak up though. So I'll just keep making some more excuses and killing some more dandelions.