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I fought the lawn and the lawn won.
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– Apologies to the Bobby Fuller Four
“I fought the lawn and the lawn won.”
– Apologies to the Bobby Fuller Four
Have you ever done something nice for a person – only to have it come right back at you and smack you upside the head? I have. Many times. You see, in our family the household duties are divided up according to their potential to be hazardous. I wash clothes, Harry cooks or we go out. I pull the weeds, Harry mows. But lately poor Harry has been a little overworked. So I decided to help him.
Now, I couldn’t really take over the cooking – because our health insurance recently stopped covering my family for food poisoning. But I could take over the lawn mowing. I mean, how hard could that be? To me, it looked like lawn mowing was vacuuming, only outdoors. With a huge blade that could cut off a foot. Or two.
And that made me a bit cautious. I had a friend give me a lesson. And when I finished the front lawn, I was happy. I was confident. I still had both feet. So my friend left me alone with the mower.
Turns out I wasn’t quite ready for solo mowing. Once I moved over to the side yard that we shared with a neighbor, I couldn’t get the mower started. So another neighbor came over and very helpfully started it for me. On the first try.
But just when I was starting to feel good about mowing again, I whipped the mower around and decapitated my neighbor’s outdoor lights.
Now I’m not defeated easily – after all, I am a parent. If I conquered toilet training, I could conquer lawn mowing. So I finished the side yard, left a note for the neighbor and went out back.
And the stupid mower wouldn’t start again.
So I did what any parent would do. I had Junior come out and hold down the handle thingy while I pulled the string thingy with both hands. Unfortunately, Junior is easily distracted. So he let go of the handle thingy while I was in mid-pull.
And the string stopped. And my arm didn’t. And it hurt. And after many, many swear words that I had to bribe Junior to never repeat, I got the mower started. And I mowed the lawn out back.
At first, the only casualties were some really pretty double impatiens I had just planted. Then a daylily fell victim to my blade. But I persevered. I just kept on mowing no matter what was in my path.
Okay – the truth is I was scared to death to stop the darned thing because I didn’t know if my arm would hold up through another session of “let’s start the lawn mower.”
But after a few minutes, the lawn started to be a bit more manageable. And I started to get that confident feeling back. I was even enjoying the wind on my face and the workout.
Until I got a face full of grass.
The bag had come open and covered me with grass cuttings. I had grass in my ears, up my nose, down my shirt. I was a human grass bag. But I didn’t stop – heck, no. I was almost done, and at that point, I would be damned before I let the lawn win. So I just kept on mowing.
But it was hard to see through the grass that packed my face, and that’s why I missed the sprinkler. Unfortunately, the lawn mower didn’t miss it. In fact, it hit the sprinkler so hard it ripped it from the pipe. And it wasn’t one of those wimpy little sprinklers either.
No, this was the one sprinkler Harry had cautioned me never to hit. In fact, I believe his warning consisted of “if you hit it, I will put a contract out on your life.”
You see, it’s not only a big sprinkler; it’s also tight into a corner between a retaining wall, the patio and the grass. In short, it’s a pretty hard sprinkler to replace – and break.
But hey, if you are going to do a job, you do it right, I always say. So I broke the sprinkler big-time. And after I was finished mowing, I went inside, had an iced tea and made some calls.
I figured that all the damage I had done in one lawn mowing session would cost the same as a month of professional lawn-mowing services. Maybe the lawn didn’t win after all.
