Comedy of Errors

Some days I think if it weren’t for my sense of humor, I’d have a nervous breakdown.  Honestly, I wonder sometimes why everything I do seems to continue in the pattern of this unending comedy of errors.  Don’t get me wrong, it is never anything completely serious or life-threatening, it’s just a steady stream of tiny maddening nonsensical events that stretch out across my life.

Take, for instance, today….

As you will know if you live in our area, we’ve had an unheard-of amount of rain storms as of late.  The last several times we have mowed our grass, our lawn tractor has operated more like a boat than a mower.  We run outside the moment the sun tries to shine, and driving through mud puddles, we knock down the high grass as quickly as we can before the skies open up and pour down on us again. 

Well, today I was determined to properly cut our grass.  By “properly” I mean cut grass with the push mower around the house and the pool, trim around the trees, and finish the larger areas with the lawn tractor.  A gorgeous day with plenty of sunshine and a lovely breeze, I was ready to be outside basking in the glory of it, even if it meant I was bound for a hard day of manual labor.

When I first pulled the push mower out of the storage barn, I thought it seemed a little heavier than usual.  One flick of my finger against the grass catcher told me why.  Some moron hadn’t emptied the clippings from the previous mowing.  As I tugged and pulled on the grass catcher to free it from the machine, I was grumbling under my breath about what kind of lazy person wouldn’t finish a job properly…and then it dawned on me that no one else in my family had EVER thought to manually cut the grass with the cheap non-self-propelled push mower machine that Brian long ago labeled “Sandy’s mower.”  I guess the moron who didn’t finish the last job was me.  Oops. 

After finally getting the pieces put back together, I checked the oil, topped off the gas tank, and commenced to pull the little stringy doo-hickey thing that is supposed to start the engine.  After five pulls, I wondered why on EARTH no one had thought to invent a push mower with a key start. 

An overwhelming whiff of gasoline told me the blasted machine was flooded, so I waited impatiently before trying again.  Five more pulls, nothing.  Seriously, hasn’t anyone ever THOUGHT to invent a push-button start for a push mower?  Push-button / Push-mower…that would make COMPLETE sense! 

After pull #11 I determined that surely SOMEONE had likely invented an easier start mechanism that didn’t require a pull string and every ounce of my energy and dignity. 

After pull #12, I wondered why I did I not own one of those machines that someone MUST have invented. 

Finally, pull #13 (who says that number is unlucky?) brought the engine to a noisy sputter followed by a puff of grey smoke and the rotation of blades.  Success!

I puttered through the long wet grass, quickly making two passes around the swimming pool, and beginning the third.  Trying to push through the tingling weakness in my right arm from the abuse of the stringy doo-hickey thing, I inadvertently ventured a little too close to the pine tree, causing a lower branch to catch in the handlebar of my push mower.  Not to be deterred, I bent lower, and pushed with all of my might to free my machine from the grip of the tree, which finally broke loose from my forward motion.  The release of that branch caused a comedic event that from beginning-to-end could not have lasted more than one second, tops.  The freed branch flipped like a rubber band into my face, knocking my sunglasses into the air.  My left hand immediately went to the owie on my chin, my right hand shot up to grab my flailing sunglasses, and the gripper bar of the mower, now released from my white-knuckled grip, fell forward, instantly killing the mower’s engine.  I stood there for a breath or two as realization washed over me.  Then, dragging my push mower behind me, I trudged back to the storage barn, mounted the old trusty lawn tractor, turned the key, and voila…

I guess one more quick knock-down of the high spots won’t hurt anything.