Lawn mowers have given me a ton of grief but I suppose there were lessons learned so not all has been lost.  When our grass trimming journey began over 20 years ago, we started out with several used Lawn Boy push mowers.  All of them worked quite well except for the one that had a tire that would never stay on.  I got so sick of putting it back on that I left it off one day and just kept mowing.  Your lawn takes on a very interesting look when you do this.  I don’t recommend it.  That bad boy was eventually replaced by a brand new discount store model.  It arrived in a box and required assembly.  I am all about reading instructions but it seems a rather anxious man decided instructions were for idiots and before I knew it, he had the mower assembled and it was on it’s way out the door to receive it’s first taste of gasoline and the chance to show us what it could do.  Not long after the engine fired up I heard it shut off.  I met someone coming up the steps to inform me that two of the wheels had fallen off and the other two were wobbling.  In the instructions I began reading when the box was first opened, I remembered seeing something about the direction the curved washers needed to face when attaching the tires to the frame.  The curved washers that were no longer attached to the frame.  The curved washers lost in the grass that were now patiently waiting for Martha Macgyver to arrive!  I pondered for a bit and due to the fact that I am a “Martha Stewart/Macgyver” type I decided to create a metal detector with my magnetic pin cushion duct taped to the end of the broom handle.  I remember someone telling me this was a crazy idea…crazy until he heard the first curved washer “clink” when it hit the magnet.  Eventually all the missing parts were recovered and the mowing commenced.

A few years down the road the large yard began to convince our tired feet that a riding lawn mower might be nice.  We located a used Snapper at a reasonable price and hoped it would give us several years of worry free lawn maintenance.  It made several attempts to serve us well but it had a very warped sense of humor.  It loved to untie it’s rope so when you pulled it in an attempt to start the engine, it would come completely out and at record speed.  That was an unpleasant surprise every time but the mower enjoyed it so much it “pulled” that trick more than it should have.  There was a certain way you had to wind the rope back on the pulley and every time it came loose I would call my dad and ask him to tell me, yet again, which way I had to wind it.  It also liked to lose air in it’s tires and if you ever mow with a low tire on a rider you get the very same look as when you mow your lawn with a 3 wheeled push mower.  Once again, I don’t recommend it.  I suppose we got sort of used to the hi-jinks but the day I heard the sonic boom coming from a cloud of smoke in the back yard, I knew only one would be coming out of that cloud alive and it wasn’t going to be the Snapper.  Upon seeing a rather bewildered man walking away from the wreckage I knew I would be rearranging an already strained budget to include a payment on a new lawn mower.  Things worked out fine and before long we had a new rider sitting beside the old one.

I didn’t spend a lot of time wondering what to do with the old rider but one day, while I was putting clothes in the dryer the phone rang.  It was my dad.  He asked if we wanted to sell our old Snapper.  I was shocked and said, “Are you kidding me?  Who would want it?”  He had a friend that had an engine but no mower and due to the fact that we had a mower with a blown engine, he thought maybe we would want to sell it.  I said we would and then asked him how much he thought it was worth.  He sold Snappers for years but said he had no idea and then handed the phone to his friend.  I was immediately asked what we wanted for it and I said, “I have no idea.  Make me an offer.”  He said, “How about $350?”  I felt myself gazing at the bubble that had formed over my head showing me clips from all the tormenting times that mower had given us and I said, “How about $300?”  He said, “SOLD!”

It’s not everyday you make someone an offer and they come back with a counter offer that is less but all I could think about is what a nightmare that mower had been and how bad I felt about taking someone’s money for something that caused us a ton of grief!  Trust me, I took a lot of guff about my wheeling and dealing skills but you can’t say I’m not a conscientious saleswoman!!! I guess it’s good I’ve never had an overwhelming desire to sell cars.