2004-09-28 - 10:17 a.m.
Of Mice and Men.
This weekend I was very happy to get some yard work done. The weather was great. I mowed the lawn without incident.
Now for most folks, that may not seem like a big deal, but let me tell you all my life lawn mowers and I have never gotten along. Never. I don’t like them and they don’t like me.
I think it started when I was young child and my slave driving father would force me to mow the yard. It was horrible. He’d chain me to the mower and force me to mow the lawn….Day in and day out. It didn’t matter if the lawn needed to be cut or not. It didn’t matter if it was raining or even if it was hailing. I clearly recall on several occasions being forced to mow the yard at night, with a flashlight taped to my head in the middle of a lighting storm. He’d pull me out of school to cut the grass if he felt the lawn didn’t look right.
Once, I tried to sabotage the lawn mower in hopes of getting out of mowing the yard, but my father was on to my plan and forced me to cut the entire yard with a pair of scissors while he encouraged the neighbors to yell obscenities at me and mock me.. It took several years of therapy to get over that, and I still am angry that no one ever called social services to rescue me.
He once bought me a John Deere calendar that featured semi naked women posing on lawn tractors. He forced me to masturbate to it.
Ok. My dad never did that. He never did any of that. He actually is a fantastic man and I am grateful for having such a wonderful father. But still, I always hated mowing the lawn, and yea, the lawn mower was always breaking.
Despite my hatred for cutting the grass, I bought a house with a huge yard. I have a ride-on mower with a super big bagger. It still takes me over 3 hours to mow the yard, and that’s if nothing goes wrong: blades hitting a stump or a root, or trying to cut a really, really thick piece of grass. I have wedged the tractor between the house and the pool filter. I have flipped the mower over. I have driven off small cliffs.I have driven into sheds. I have hit trees. I suck at mowing the yard. I hate it and quite honestly I am surprised I still have all my limbs and haven’t died or been horribly mangled in some bizarre lawn mowing incident.
Anyhow, I love the yard, I love the house, I love it all. Except I hate mowing the fucking lawn. Not once in the five years I have been there have I gone out and mowed the lawn without having a major problem and cursing the good name of Briggs and Stratton all to hell.
That all changed a few weeks ago. I broke the mower good. Damn fucking good. I have no idea what I did but the service guys told me it needed new mandrels, new blades, a new deck, a new starter, new fly wheels several hand made gonculators, and a list of other lawn mowerish sounding parts. My cup holder had snapped off too. It was time for a new mower. Damnit. A good mower. One with a stronger cup holder. WE can put a man on the god damn moon, but why for love of god, not make a mower witha decent cup holder?
The fine men at Sears set me up with the ultimate lawn mowing machine. Check this out. 
Yup. I’m a bad ass. And the chicks dig the new ride. Oh yea. Check out the customized flames on the hood, and even my NASCAR loving wife added the Dale Earnhardt#3 to the side. (Funny thing….ever since the #3 was put on the tractor; it will only turn left and has a tendency to run straight into walls. Huh. Go figure….)
I am happy to report that I have successfully mowed the lawn several times now with out incident and my wife is no longer afraid to come out side if I am cutting the grass. Neighbors allow young children out too, as the cursing and cussing has all but been eliminated.
Anyhow, this was supposed to have been an entry about how our garden shed is infested with mice and my wife’s ongoing battle to defeat them. But, it’s getting late and let me just say that if you do have a shed infested with mice and mice shit, It’s probably not a good idea to send your wife in there with a Black and Decker blower in attempt to flush them out. This will only result in tons of mice and mice shit being blown all around, vortex style in the shed, covering your lovely wife in mouse shit, and cause her to come running out of the shed screaming and waving her hands frantically as she strips off her clothes and dives into the pool.
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