And if God is laughing, I might as well laugh too. And for bonus points, I’ll share the laughter with you all!
Last time I tried to mow my grass, I would say the venture was half successful. I declined to share the story here because it seemed a bit like complaining, but it adds a little flavor to my woes of today, so I’ll throw it in for good measure.
I mowed the front yard without incident. I thought ”Hey! This is actually gonna be easy! For once!”
Then I hopped off to open the fence to the back yard and the whole endeavor fell apart. I attempted to restart the mower to no avail. I pushed pins, lifted levers, turned knobs, clutched cranked and eventually, almost cried. The darn thing wasn’t even trying to turn over. Nothing I did worked. Nothing was happening. Gah.
Even worse, my eight hundred pound lawn mower was stranded quite some way away from my storage shed. Though I am not a frail little lady or particularly unwilling to get my hands dirty and sweat a little, there was no way I was going to be able to push that mower to the shed in less than an hour’s time. Ridiculous.
Fortunately, I know some clever people and only a couple of days later, it was determined that my battery was not well connected. Or whatever. Anyway, that was remedied and I was able to DRIVE that monstrosity back to the shed.
And today I was bound and determined to mow both front and back yards again. The front yard was already beginning to look bad again and the back? Oh my, it was atrocious.
So this morning I got started early. I threw open the shed door with enthusiasm for the task at hand. I pulled (with all my might, may I add) the darned thing out into the driveway and started it up. With ease! Oh, finally, this time was going to be easy. Surely I had dealt with all of my mower issues and all would be well.
Once I’d driven into the grass, I engaged the mower blade. No, I take that back. I turned the lever to engage the blade, but nothing happened. Sigh. Of course nothing happened. Why would I ever think mowing my grass would be EASY?
My wonderful Dad suggested the owner’s manual for trouble shooting. Amazingly, MY MOWER BLADE WON’T ENGAGE is not among the trouble shooting topics. Really?
But I began to notice a pattern among the other mower deck/blade questions – the belt. So the belt was a potential problem. Ok, so back out in the front yard, on hands and knees, butt sticking up in the air checking the belt. Voila! The belt was unlooped from the little pulley things. And that’s as technical as I can get 
For real though, for it being as easy as it obviously was for the belt to come unlooped, it was ridiculously difficult to re-loop it. There’s this bar sticking up that’s supposed to prevent the belt from slipping out (obviously a failure) that made it nearly impossible to get it back in place. I ended up using a pair of pliers (ummm… or a wrench? I’m not really sure which is which) to pry the bar away from the pulley so I could re-loop the stupid belt. All the time, butt sticking up in the air in my front yard. So attractive.
BUT I DID IT! I felt absolutely unstoppable after solving this dilemma. I plowed through both the front and back yards, beautifying my property with ease.
Then I got a little cocky with it. I started taking corners at excessive speed. I finished the yards proper and there’s this tiny little bit of grass near my shed that is awfully difficult to mow with my gigantic riding lawn mower, as I have a gravel driveway and the mower blades don’t like the gravel driveway. But I can do anything and so I tried it out. It went smoothly for 0.267 seconds. I made a sharp turn and ran half the mower into a flower bed up against the fence. If you’re having a hard time visualizing this scenario:
- Lawn Mower Situation
So don’t worry too much about scaling… obviously the mower in the upper left hand corner is far too large to ever to have found itself in that position, but let’s just assume it did.
May 3, 2011 at 9:33 pm
First, I want you to know that I’ve been trying really, really hard to refrain from judgement, given that I have very little yard-mowing experience myself. But it’s soo hard. A personal fault if there ever was one.
SO, I was thinking that while we’re trying to deduce God’s will from your amusing and never ending series of misadventures involving this particular lawn mower, maybe He just wants you to get a normal, old-school lawn mower, like so: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&q=manual+lawn+mower&cid=16469036187470643087&os=reviews
You know, something that you could actually lift and move around, as necessary. One that doesn’t have the engine of a small car (and therefore require you to have knowledge about engine mechanics that you just don’t have). One that doesn’t spit out large quantities of nasty fumes at your neighbor.
OR, maybe God wants you to hire a hot, shirtless Mexican—or a teenager–to mow your yard for you. With the difficulty you’ve had–not to mention the expense and the time that your dad’s put in–I would say hiring out this particular job might be worth it. Plus when you spend money on labor–all that money is going to be cycled back through the system locally–labor intensive spending is better for the economy than spending that’s on crap imported from China, or even produce from California. (Go with the shirtless Mexican–it’s *the right thing to do*.)
May 3, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Great post, I get myself into A LOT of pickles like this, we could be twins! Good for you for not giving up though and even better that you can laugh at yourself! Good luck next time you have to cut the grass, sooner or later you’ll be a pro
May 4, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Liz, I like you am a determined person & refused to give up on the mower myself. That was until I decided I could finish the task a little quicker with quicker turns. Turns are fast & fun until you find yourself laid out on the grass while the mower is elsewhere. that too was a required laughing moment. Especially when I realized that a group of cows were staring at me.
May 6, 2011 at 9:39 am
Judgemental: Your anonymity does not fool me! I have been waiting for you to suggest an electric mower for months now
My reasoning for not buying a new mower is the same as my reasoning for not hiring the job out – I HAVE NO MONEY. But trust me, I would love to have someone else take on the project.
However I would like to point out that hiring a shirtless Mexican would more than likely help to boost the Mexican economy more than it would our own. Teenagers are guaranteed to spend their money locally because they aren’t smart enough to save.
So for the time being, I will keep my grass manicured as best I am capable through my own flawed methods. Right now it’s about the only entertaining thing in my life, so it also give me something to write about. Lose for me, Win for you
Ginger! Nice to make your acquaintance! I’m hoping my pro status drops out of the sky MUCH sooner rather than any time later!
Stacey, seriously? I definitely see you as a determined person, but when have you mowed grass around cows that can mock you with their eyes? (AWESOME image, btw) I haven’t been thrown yet, but I can guarantee it will happen soon enough, which is why I haven’t tried to figure out how to disengage the safety mechanism that makes the mower turn off if the seat empties. I will fall off. It is just a matter of time. But in the meantime, I look at it like very tame bull riding. My neighbors probably think I am ridiculous, but they are also probably right. Love!