I Mowed My Lawn After Dark Last Night

A little background: This weekend has been a very busy one. My sister-in-law got married on Friday, so Thursday and half of Friday I was watching both kids by myself and trying to look nice for pictures. We got back Saturday afternoon and I wanted to get a few things squared away before Monday, one of which was making sure the lawn looked good and the clippings got taken away. I live in a town where you have to unload your clippings at the town conservation center (dump) and it's only open for a few hours each weekend day and part of the day Wednesday. Grass clippings smell awful when in a big ol' bag, so I didn't want to leave a big stinky pile of grass in my garage when I returned to work on Monday. But I also wanted a stress free Sunday with limited things I'd have to do (outside of making a trip to the dump). It was getting late in the day and it was supposed to be another scorcher on Sunday, so my only realistic windows to mow my lawn without getting cooked was early Sunday morning or Saturday night.

I was a bit up against it time wise. It was getting late in the evening and the kids were taking a while eating dinner. My phone said sunset was scheduled for 8:24pm. It was almost 7:45pm and we'd need to get at least one of them asleep so I could get outside. I really didn't want to wake up on Sunday knowing I'd have to both mow the lawn AND go to the dump, so I made the decision I'd try to beat the sun. The fucking sun. I went into hyper-Dad drive and got the baby down a little after 8:05pm. I gathered my headphones and had to fill up the mower with some gas so wasn't able to start until 8:15pm. At the time, it seemed reasonable as it was still light out and I know it's still a little light out after sunset. So I started with my front yard which is about half the size of my backyard. As I was finishing that up around 8:35pm, it started to get pretty dark. As I made my way to the backyard, visibility was low. We have a motion censor light which allowed me to complete the job, but about 15 minutes in, it was pitch black. I felt like a weirdo mowing my lawn that late, so I had to ask question on twitter to get the public to weigh in. *The pic below was taken with flash which was needed.

Now I'll admit I didn't feel right mowing the lawn in complete darkness. I've been a homeowner for almost four years now and never done this before. No neighbors have kids that are under five years of age, so I felt it was ok as a one time thing. But did I violate a major unspoken rule? The replies were mixed.

While the results were mixed, I still feel like blue collar brute was right.

So what do you think? Did I do anything wrong? Sound off in the comments below if I'm in the clear or if my neighbors should despise me.

Lastly, of course you know this was blaring on max volume in my headphones. If any weekend warriors will be pushing that metal horse today, do yourself a favor and throw this on shuffle.