Return of the Lawnmower Man
The weather is warming up, and I’m back in the front yard cutting the grass. For the most part, I enjoy a good mow. It’s a lot like taking a morning stroll … in a series of straight lines.
Side note: I don’t criss-cross, cross-hatch or spiral. I don’t need birds and helicopters to think I’ve got a hedge maze going on in my yard. It’s a lawn, not the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
But I digress, like I do. This year, lawn maintenance has gotten a bit … complicated. I have a new mower, and it’s a high-tech piece of machinery. It’s completely beyond me.
Back in the old days, you had one handle. Now, you have to hold down the safety bar. I suppose the safety bar seems like an inconvenient device. You have to hold it down the whole time or the motor automatically shuts off. I suppose it’s kept my feet attached to the rest of me.
The new mower has a second bar. It’s an orange handle that acts like a Mario Kart Turbo Boost bar. This newfangled gadget makes it easier to glide uphill. If you go downhill, hit a patch of wet grass or try to turn with the orange bar still engaged, you go flying! Whenever I round a corner, I jerk forward. Imagine being eight years old trying to walk a fully grown Labrador. It sort of just pulls you along. I’ve bounced into a few trees and bushes. Hard! Red rover, red rover, like it or not, Mikey is coming over!
It’s kind of like jogging and mowing at the same time. I’m sort of pulled along for the ride.
I am still learning how to hold the safety bar down and engage and disengage the Turbo Boost bar simultaneously. For the record, I’m not very coordinated. I can’t seem to ease up on the one bar while maintaining a steady hand on the safety bar. It goes a little like this: Start. Speed toward death! Stop. Start. Speed toward my impending doom again! Stop.
On the second Saturday of lawn maintenance for 2017, somewhere near the final few rows of the backyard, I mastered it. “Mastered it” might be too strong a statement. I figured out how to cut the grass without killing myself.
There’s another wrinkle in the future of lawn care. The high-tech lawnmower came with a high-tech gas canister; the No-Spill Five-Gallon Poly Gas Can. It’s guaranteed not to spill or leak, but I can’t seem to coax the gas out of the spout. It’s not very efficient if I can’t get the gas out of the gas can and into the tank. Last Saturday, a spring came bursting out of the spout. Boing! I had to unscrew the spout and carefully pour the gas into the tank, from hole to hole. So much for the whole no-spilling thing.
I’m not ready for a riding mower. I have a steep hill adjacent to a thick patch of woods, a veritable forest behind the backyard, and whenever I think about getting a riding mower I think, “That’s where they’ll find the body.”
I’m getting back out there. If you haven’t heard from me in a few days, send help.