Except his next-door neighbor Ellen had a lush green lawn today.

Phil didn’t have to guess what had happened. The four-foot-high faux granite goddess statue told him everything he needed to know.

Ellen’s car pulled into her own driveway, and she noticed Phil eyeing the lawn.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

He stifled a scream. “I thought you already had a god. That weird one. The one with the horns and the nine arms.”

“Oh, sure. That’s still working out for me, but he’s a jealous old goat,” she said. “But he doesn’t do lawns. So I just hired an outside service. They stick up the statue, offer the tribute, and my god doesn’t get jealous and smite me dead. It’s a win-win.” Ellen knelt down and ran her hand across her lawn in an almost obscene manner. “That Demeter sure knows how to handle crabgrass, doesn’t she?”

And that was that. The next day Phil went online and signed up on Pantheon.com.

Teri was against the idea at first.

“You knew I didn’t want any gods before we were married,” she said. “We had a long talk about this.”

“I know, but-”

“My grandfather was killed by a desert god, y’know,” she said. “Just for cutting his hair.”

“I know, but-”

“In the end, they always get you, Phil. They always screw you over. Read your history.”

He took her in his arms. She offered some resistance, then hugged him back.

“Honey,” she said, “I know you’re frustrated with how things have been going lately, but I don’t think you’re thinking this through.”

“I am,” he said. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and it makes sense to me.”

She pulled away from him. “We’re not doing so bad, are we?”

Phil looked at his house. It wasn’t big, but it was big enough. They had the finest furniture IKEA could supply, a television larger than would have been sane ten years ago, and enough bric-a-brac and art hanging from the walls to keep Teri happy but not appear too cluttered. Although he could’ve done without the sailboat motif. Something he’d always found odd, considering he’d never heard Teri even talk about sailing once since he’d met her.