Friday, July 31, 2009

The post in which I explain how NOT to mow the lawn

Sunday afternoon, I was home alone and I had to mow the lawn. It'd been over a week since it'd been mowed and it was pretty long. I slathered myself in sunscreen (I was taking those antibiotics on which one should avoid exposure to the sun) and hopped on the mower. Except, it didn't start. Great. I'd seen The Husband put the mower on the charger before so I thought "How hard can this be?"

I plugged in the charger and went to put the leads on the mower. Except there is no black/red on the mower battery. The leads were black and red, but how was I supposed to know which lead went on which terminal. I swear there was no writing. I took a deep breath thinking the worst that could happen is that I blow up my house, and attached the leads. Nothing happened. I was so happy. Then, I turned the charger on. The light went on and the needles did their thing. Well, I was already slathered in sunscreen and didn't want to wait hours for the charger so I figured I could flip the switch and jump start the mower. Again...worst case scenario is that I blow up the house. Yeah, the kids would miss me, but I'm kind of impatient when I decide to do something!

I got on the mower and started it. It started, but then I was stuck. If I got off the mower, the engine would cut off. Safety feature. Except at that moment, it sucked. I decided to carefully reach up and unhook the leads. Then, I had to put them down...except I knew they shouldn't touch each other; the charger was still plugged into the wall and turned on...and I couldn't reach it from the seat of the mower. I carefully threw the leads down and backed out of the garage.

So far, so good! Off I go to mow the yard.

Remember the fence the renters put up? I'd link to it but I can't find where I posted and it's not under the label 'stupidity' although it should be! Anyway, they set the fence posts in cement, which was stupid. When The Husband pulled the posts, he learned of the cement. Needless to say there are large holes in our yard. The Husband had warned me to be careful mowing and NOT to drive the mower into a hole.

Guess who drove the mower into a hole? Yep! BUT…I was able to drive out of it after a tiny bit of coaxing back and forth. PHEW!

Feeling really good about myself, I attacked the rest of the yard. I was doing a great job, too. Then, I decided that the grass under the trailer behind the shed was entirely too long and should be mowed as well. I hopped off the mower and proceeded to move the trailer. It is light, so not a big deal to move. Except if you maneuver it into one of those holes. One of the deepest holes in the yard.

By now, my dad is at the house. I get him to help me move the trailer. OK – I get him to help me TRY to move the trailer. No dice. Then, we get The Boy to help. Still, nothing. Someone gets the brilliant idea to get the floor jack, lift the trailer, and push it out of the hole. Except for the fact that the trailer pivots on the wheels, it’d have been a great idea. We jacked the front of the trailer up but it only pushed the back further down. DUH!

Finally, we managed to put the jack right under the axle (and not in the hole) and we lifted the trailer just enough to slide a piece of wood under the wheel covering the hole. It worked! We moved the trailer out of the way and I finished mowing. I went to put the trailer back but couldn’t even move it. Why? Because I’m 40 and I was exhausted! I got my dad to help and we put the trailer back (but left plenty of room for the mower all around it).

Luckily, the rest of the job mowing was uneventful. I don’t think I could have taken any more excitement!



2 comments:

  1. Man, I'm tired from just reading all that.
    I actually cut my grass today but it was relatively boring compared to yours.

    Oh, glad you didn't blow up - I would have missed you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sometimes parents still come in handy!

    ReplyDelete

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