Possumblog

So, as I was saying…

BRIGHT AND EARLY SATURDAY MORNING!

(By the way, this post is so long it cuts off at the bottom--remember the trick--press F11 twice and it should fix itself.)

Up, put on clothes, rub what feels like boulders out of my eyes, and figure out what to do. Well, obviously, there’s the car battery, and I needed to take back those year-overdue library books. First thought was to jump the Focus off, run down to the foot of the hill and get the battery changed, then go to the library, then come home and cut grass.

M’kay.

Pulled the Volvo over close to the Focus, got out the jumper cables, popped the hoods on both, positive to positive, negative to ground, hop in the Focus and tictictic. TICtictic. Wait. Turn key, tictictictictic. tic.

THAT, dear readers, is one DEAD batt’ry.

::sigh::

Unhooked the cables, rolled them up, pulled the Volvo back over in its normal oily spot, got out the wrenches and unhooked the battery out of the Focus. Grabbed a cardboard box lid and put it in the back of the van, grabbed the books off the kitchen counter, and was told to also hunt-and-gather some breakfast while I was out.

Which meant my first stop actually had to be the grocery store to get some cash back from my purchase. So, that first, then to the library. Which didn’t open until 10. So I went and got the battery, THEN went back to the library. I explained to the nice girl at the counter that I was a complete dolt and had mistakenly not brought back the books because they were lost in my house and I would pay whatever fine she levied upon me. “Well, they were taken out of the system, so there’s no fine due.” “But--well. You’re sure!?” “Yes sir, there’s no fine.”

Which led to A Moment of Unabashed Common Sense From the Mind of an Entitlement-American, in which I jokingly asked myself though the use of my internal dialogue mechanism: “Well, gee--since the books aren’t in the system anymore, it’s almost like I’m DONATING books to the library, so I wonder if I could take that as a deduction on my income tax?”

I profusely thanked the girl and left in a much better mood. Stopped and got some food, home, shared it with the family, then went out to get on with the job of grass-cutting. And mood-damaging.

Dragged out the old reliable, yet falling apart before my eyes Murray, gassed it up, cranked it, and set to work. Boy, that thing is hard to push. I figured it was the grass (weeds) that were brushing up against my armpits, but something just wasn’t right. It’s supposed to be self-propelled, meaning it propels itself, not that I have to propel it MYself. I picked up the rear end and pulled the drive lever. Nothing. Ah. Ah CRAP. Stupid thing.

I had only done the perimeter of the yard, and already felt like I’d gone a round with a sumo wrestler. I rolled it around to the backyard and heaved it over. Ah. I see. No drive belt. That’s what happens when all of the protective sheetmetal coverings have come loose and been chewed to bits by the blade--you leave the fragile drive belt out there to be damaged by all the junk you run over. ::sigh::

Replace the drive belt? Could. Take forever, though. And it’ll just get chewed up again.

The Oracle of Murray is dead! LONG LIVE THE ORACLE OF MURRAY!

It has been a good mower for around ten years or so--not great, but good enough. But I was through wrestling with it. Time for a replacement.

It’s only money, you know.

Cleaned up a bit and wiped all the grass and sweat off of me and changed shirts, then it was off to get something. First thought, Sam’s Club. They sell ‘em, right?

But, you know, being a moron and all entails that there is no such thing as a simple purchase. Can’t just go get something--nooOOOOOoooo. Gotta see what’s out there, you know. So on the way to Sam’s Club, I thought I would stop by K-Mart. It’s right on the way. And they haven’t had lawnmowers in at least two years. It’s barely hanging on. Should have known better. Why did I stop!? Yes, I am a moron. On to Sam’s.

Parked, in, asked where the lawnmowers were. “Uhh, well--if we have any, they’re gonna be there in the middle, but I think we may be out.” How can that be? I don’t know, but it can be. They had every other tool known to bulk wholesalers, but no lawnmowers. Grr.

Wal-Mart, then!

Drove across the road to the shopping center, went in, found about four forlorn mowers. A reel-type, one of which I used to cut the yard of the grandmother of a high-school friend. The yard was St. Augustine grass. I vowed never to use a reel-type mower again. Two cheapo push mowers, and one tremendously expensive electric-start model that looked like it could double as a golf cart. “Do y’all not have any more mowers?”

No.

Double grr.

ON TO HOME DESPOT!

Oooooh. Lovely shiny black Murrays, and red Hondas, and green Lawn Boys! I found the cheapest self-propelled they had--this one here, as a matter of fact. Not too cheap, not too expensive. Scratch that--yes, it IS too expensive. But I felt better when I perused the “reconditioned” mowers they had.

Why would I want to save fifty bucks and buy a lawnmower that looks WORSE than the one languishing at home on my patio!? The things they were selling as reconditioned looked like utter garbage. If you’re going to sell something as reconditioned, would it hurt so much to WIPE IT DOWN WITH A CLOTH? Maybe EMPTY THE BAG? Why would anyone buy one of those is beyond me. Maybe yardwork contractors, who go through mowers like parents go through baby diapers.

Anyway, I got my shiny new mower and rolled it to the cashier. “Uh, you do take debit cards, right?” “Only the Visa or MasterCard ones.”

Great. Grr. All I have is my bank debit card. “Well, hold this here while I go to the ATM and get some cash.”

More cash.

::sigh::

Drove down to the other end of the shopping center to Target and ran in and emptied out my account and the ATM, then ran back up to the other end of the shopping center to pay for my mower. The woman seemed genuinely stymied about how to make change for such a tremendously ginormous purchase. The difference in price and cash tendered was only seventeen bucks and some change, but she had to keep looking at the display on the register and recounting all the dollars. But, no matter, it was now mine to go play with.

Home, made sure the oil was topped off, and then--gas. Hmm. Well, I had a little left in the other mower, and none in the gas can. Tilted Old Murray over, poured some into the jug, decanted that into New Murray, and well, no way that’s going to be enough.

Time to go get gas. I.e., spend more money.

Down to the foot of the hill, filled up the 5 and the 2.5 gallon cans, back home, and FINALLY, I GET TO CUT GRASS. It is now TWO-THIRTY Pee Em. The only advantage to all this running around is that I was able to listen to most of the Auburn-Mississippi State game, which I neglected to give a run-down for on Friday. My prediction, however, was a final score of 28-0, which is exactly the way it turned out. As my good friend Pat Dye always says, “Hindsight is 50-50.”

Back to the yardwork. Boy, does that new Murray cut good!

Differences betwixt old and new? Well, the new one is a lot easier to maneuver. It has front drive, and just seems lighter to manhandle around. It also looks, well, not retro, but not like they spent a whole lot of time trying to make it look like a Corvette or something. It just looks like a lawnmower. The engine is the engine--the old flathead Briggs and Stratton, which like sharks, cockroaches, and alligators pretty much reached its evolutionary peak back when every child had a pet dinosaur. It does have 6.5 horses, though, the most powerful lawnmower I have ever owned. Oddly enough, though, it has no throttle. I guess they figured that most of us manly men never used them anyway. My old one was perpetually stuck on high (or rather, on Rabbit Pictogram)--I mean, who needs a slow (or Turtle Pictogram) lawnmower, right? Right. The only thing that was worrisome was the bag. Tiny affair. It said it held 2 1/2 bushels, but I believe that those are pixie bushels, because I had to empty the fool thing every two passes. And getting the grass out was HORRIBLE. Tiny little slot in the front where it came out of the mower. You have to reach in and drag it back out the same way, which would be very bad if I had run over dog poop or fire ants. For some reason, there was no other way to empty the ba--

Oh.

Oops.

Seems that the whole backend of the bag has a nice elastic hem that fits around the frame. Undo it, and the whole bag opens up so you can quickly dump the clippings. Well, there’s you a good reason to read the owner’s manual, eh? Whata moron.

As for its power as an oracle, it remains to be seen. It didn’t seem to put out near the amount of smoky vapors as Old Murray, and didn’t vibrate nearly as much. Those two things were usually guaranteed to put me into a trancelike state where I could solve all of the ills of the world. Without the vibration through my arms and the rich cloud of carbon monoxide, I might lose some of that perspicacity for which I have become famed. Then again, I did find a bottle of Tylenol 3 in the cabinet when I was cleaning out the other day, so that might work pretty well, too.

The only other bad thing was a freak of the weather that had caused the grass to be moist in places, yet the ground to be parched dusty dry in other places. This, combined with the nearly impenetrable thatch of long-neglected grass made the experience last much longer than I felt necessary, and caused me to later sneeze out great black clouds of vile sinus stuff. That’s probably not good for me.

Oh well. It wasn’t so bad as the smoke that got in my eyes from the grill when I cooked our supper.

But the yard looks very nice now. OH, and while I was doing stupid stuff, I also changed out the battery tray in the Volvo, which was a SMART thing. The old metal tray had corroded through, and I slipped in the new old fiberglass tray I had gotten from the junkyard. Ten minutes and it was gooder than new. Well, aside from the fact that the battery is slightly different, and the little hold-down clip, doesn’t. Hold-down, that is. Meaning I need a battery strap of some sort to make sure it doesn’t go flying around in the engine compartment. A project for another day, though.

ANYwho, time for baths and beddy-bye after supper, and some small amount of school project work avoidance on the part of Boy and Rebecca, who seem to be moving at a snail’s pace. Well, you know, it’s not due until tomorrow.

SUNDAY! The Day Spent Entirely Drenched in Sweat! Coming up next.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at September 12, 2005 11:57 AM