The Grass is Always Greener

Olivia Parker wants a bigger bedroom, and when she discovers her brother Matthew's basement room is a whole foot longer than hers, she talks him into a secret swap while their parents drive their broken-down lawn mower to the repair shop. The scheme costs her three weeks of chores, then more when a bed jams on the stairs, Mom's favorite photo frame shatters, and Grandma shows up asking why quilts are draped all over the banister. Matthew's room turns out to smell funny, Camilla's has a tempting closet, and Olivia keeps trading rooms - and chores - until she owes her siblings six months of work and ends up right back where she started, in the sunny room with the bay window she loved all along. But Grandma's visit was no accident... her parents sent her to help Olivia see what she already had. At dinner Olivia confesses everything, and her parents confess too: watching her chase contentment convinced Dad to cancel the fancy new riding mower and simply fix old Bessie instead. And across town, a struggling carpenter named Scott Decker opens his door to find a brand-new table saw, paid in full by someone who left no name.

Found on Let’s Put on a Show! Album 62 · 6 episodes

The run See every episode

0804 The Key Suspect When every locker at school is found mysteriously open two mornings in a row with nothing stolen, middle-school detectives Emily Jones and Matthew Parker take on a taunting culprit who seems to be daring them to catch him.

1 of 2 0805 A Very Bassett Wedding With the wedding just two days away, a bride's carefully laid plans start unraveling in ways no coordinator could predict.

2 of 2 0806 A Very Bassett Wedding With the wedding two days away, a ruined dress, a missing engagement ring, and a sudden medical emergency send Wooton, his suspicious twin brother, and their friends scrambling to save Penny and Wooton's big day.

0807 Connie the Counselor When her scheming teenage half-sister shows up unannounced and a counseling class assignment forces her to practice therapy on a very reluctant Eugene, Connie discovers that helping people is a lot harder than the textbook makes it look.

0808 No Friend Like an Old Friend A chance encounter with a talkative stranger on the bus home forces Connie to see her frustration with her sister in a whole new light.

0809 Fathers and Sons When a stranger arrives at Jason's antique shop searching for a music box tied to a dead man's estate, an encoded melody launches a treasure hunt through hidden keys, secret riddles, and long-buried family wounds.

0810 The Grass is Always Greener When a broken lawn mower sends their parents to town, Olivia convinces her siblings to secretly swap bedrooms, sure the grass is greener in someone else's room.

1 of 2 0811 Legacy Long-delayed news from a beloved old friend arrives just as two restless teenagers wander into an apple orchard - and stumble upon a stranded troupe of traveling performers.

2 of 2 0812 Legacy When a traveling theater troupe needs a stage and Becky's inherited farm needs visitors, Whit rallies the whole town to put on a Western musical melodrama - and the show may change more lives than anyone expects.

1 of 3 0813 One More Name When a middle schooler's history project stirs her anger over wartime injustice, her teacher shares the true story of a Polish social worker who risked everything to save children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

2 of 3 0814 One More Name In Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a social worker and her secret network risk everything to smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto - but one desperate mother's choice puts a little girl beyond their reach.

3 of 3 0815 One More Name With her secret jars of names at risk and the Gestapo at her door, a woman who smuggled children out of the Warsaw Ghetto must face the ultimate test of her trust in God.

0816 A Perfect Testimony When a visiting missionary kid's miraculous testimony wows the church class, one girl scrambles to manufacture a miracle of her own while a boy goes looking for fear in all the wrong places.

Featured characters

Minor characters & crew 3 more roles

3 supporting roles

Lucia Ortega Lucki Wheating Delivery Man Nathan Hoobler Scott Decker Kevin Patrick Goulet

Made by

Chris Anthony Host Kathy Buchanan Writer · Director Jonathan Crowe Sound Designer Nathan Hoobler Producer Dave Arnold Executive Producer

The story

Read the full synopsis 3 min

On a Saturday morning, Olivia Parker butters up her mother with compliments about the garden before asking for what she really wants: an early birthday so she can get new boots like her friend Zoe's. Her mom sees right through her, and her dad, David, turns her down too while he mows the lawn. Then the family's old push mower, affectionately called Bessie, sputters and dies, and the starter cord comes off in David's hand. Since Bessie has been breaking down a lot lately, David and Eva decide to drive her to Red Hollard's machine shop in Connellsville and make a lunch date out of the trip, leaving the kids home for a few hours.

While helping her brother Matthew glue together his model helicopter-ski-boat invention, Olivia discovers that his basement bedroom is a whole foot longer than hers. Declaring that as the firstborn she deserves the biggest room, she talks Matthew into secretly swapping bedrooms while their parents are gone, paying him three weeks of chores plus her curling iron and crimper to take apart. She insists their parents will be thrilled at their initiative, though she admits, "It just looks more impressive post-initiative than mid-initiative."

At Red's shop, the news is mixed. The mower is fixable, but it's the same starter coil that has failed twice before. Red points David toward a shiny riding mower on sale, a John Steere VX5000 with turbo that he claims could haul a wagon of walruses uphill. It's expensive, but Eva reminds David they have some extra money right now, and they decide to buy it. Meanwhile, they chat with Scott Decker, a customer whose table saw Red has just pronounced "dead as a possum under a pickup." Scott can't really afford a new one, but he needs it for an upcoming cabinet job, and with his wife Jaylen eight months pregnant, money is tight.

Back home, the room swap turns into chaos. The kids break their mom's favorite photo frame moving the beds, and their younger sister Camilla charges Olivia a week of chores to fix it. When Grandma arrives to pick up her cake pan, a bed is stuck on the stairway, so Olivia stalls her while Matthew hides the evidence behind quilts draped over the banister, which Olivia claims they are airing out. Grandma dryly notes that airing quilts usually works better outside. Then Olivia discovers that Matthew's basement room has a smell that seems baked into the walls, so she pays to move back upstairs. Along the way she spots Camilla's huge closet and bargains her way into Camilla's room instead. But when Grandma returns for her immersion blender, she gushes about Olivia's original room, with its big bay window, cozy window seat, sunshine, and view of the mountain, and offers to sew curtains and polka-dot pillows for it. Hearing that, Olivia hauls everything back to her first room, and by the end of the day she owes her siblings six months of chores.

That evening over Grandma's enchiladas, Olivia confesses the whole scheme. Her parents have a confession of their own. While they were filling out paperwork for the new riding mower, Grandma phoned Eva to report the suspicious quilts, and the parents asked her to go back and help Olivia appreciate her own room. Grandma insists everything she said was true: "You have the best room for you." The parents explain that they chose each room on purpose - the basement gives Matthew quiet and cheap carpet for his tinkering, Camilla's closet holds her sports equipment, and Olivia's bright room is perfect for slumber parties and closest to the bathroom. Olivia admits that once she moved back in, she remembered how much she loves it.

Olivia's lesson worked on her parents too. Thinking about contentment, and remembering Eva's papa's saying that a person who isn't content with what they have won't be content with what they want, David realized he was perfectly happy with Bessie and the exercise of a push mower. They asked Red to simply fix the starter coil, deciding there were better things to do with their money. The kids figure the mix-up saved their parents a bundle, but David hints there is more to the story. Across town, a delivery truck pulls up at Scott Decker's house with a brand-new table saw, already paid in full by someone who left no name, and an amazed Scott runs to tell Jaylen the wonderful news.