Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My lawn mower is a sexist jerk

My momma didn't raise a girly girl.

She raised me to be independent thinking, hard working,
car tire changing, chip-in-when-you-can kind of person.

Actually, that car tire thing was all my dad.

And the oil change thing.

And anything mechanical.

My parents are very practical people.

Either that, or they never figured I'd sucker some poor slouch an awesome guy like D. into marrying me.

Long story short, I am not a girly girl...by any stretch of the imagination.

I worked through college at Menards.

I had a forklift license, for goodness sake!

(Let's not talk about the whole running-into-the-gutter-display incident, thankyouverymuch)

So, on a day like today, when its nice a sunny out...

..and the temperature is a balmy 50 degrees

...and my husband has been dreading mowing the lawn for the past few weeks

well, youbetcha I'll help him out!

I'm good like that.

C was napping.

Audit phone calls were made.

It's either sit on the couch and watch soaps or head outside to mow the lawn.

While the former sounded cool (who wouldn't want to know about someone whose long lost love returned from the dead only to find out they are actually an identical twin who has split personalities)

I opted for the latter.

After all, I'm a team player.

I spend 30 minutes cleaning up the half broken sand toy crap awesome outdoor toys scattered about the yard.

I get the mower out of storage.

No gas.

Find a gas tank that has some liquid in it, quick wiff...yep, gas.

Fill the tank.

Prime the mower...three times.

pull the throttle.

grab the string

PULL!

nothing.

PULL!

blub blub

PULL!

blub

PULL!

ouch, my arm.

PULL!

and now my shoulder

PULL!

ok, I'm done.

I tell D about it when he gets home- you know, so I can at least get some sort of recognition in case he thinks the gas tank is empty and goes to fill it and it overflows and causes some sort of fire when he gets the engine to work.

He goes to the mower.

pull

VROOM!

But does he mow the lawn then? 

No. 

He puts the mower away!

So, again today....

C. is asleep.

Audit calls were made.

Evil identical twin is still on tv...
...but the same story line will be on in 4 months, I'll catch it then.

I head out...

...and AGAIN have to spend way too much time cleaning up the yard.

(note to self:  one shovel per child...that's it.  They have imaginations, they can use them)

Pull out the mower.

Prime the engine.

Grab the string
PULL!
blub.

PULL!

blub blub

PULL!!!!!

nothing.

And that ends my landscaping career of 2010.

8 comments:

Kathy said...

Oh I hate when that happens! And I swear it always happens when my neighbors just happen to be outside watching.

And I'm glad you didn't stay gone from the blogworld for long! I'm considering getting back into blogging. Maybe. ;)

Parenting in blue jeans said...

Oh, I'm laughting so hard! Sandy, I had no idea we had that much in common. I too can drive a forklift and have many stories about bobcat , backhoes, loaders that should never be told! AND I can't start a pull mower to save my life.

Mama M. said...

That was great!! You had me chuckling the whole time!!

Joy and Randy said...

Lawn mowers hate me too...especially at the beginning of the season! And I used to sell the gosh darn things.

Ron Cooper said...

Wow, funny, funny story!


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Ron

Katie's Dailies said...

Why is it that ll things mechanical ALWAYS seem to work for the men in our lives? SO not right!

And I love the soap opera synopsis... you nailed it! ; )

New follower, by the way! Hope you have a fun weekend---maybe mowing your yard?

Valerie said...

Thanks so much for visiting my blog!

I wish you the best on house building AND yard maintainence! :) And I love you Goal sheet... Might have to copy that idea! :)

Jenna said...

hahaha!! That's the story of my life!! I no longer mow the yard..due to us having a tractor as a lawn mower and i almost ran into the house... :)