Mow Hard, Mow Fast

Hi,



My name is Linda and I am an abuser.



What kind of abuser, you ask? Could it be drugs, drink, porn, husband or (possibly) the misuse of prescription pre-natal vitamins?



None of the above, for I must confess to a horrific, hate filled, addictive indifference directed toward my . . . my . . . . it’s my . . . (sounds of gasping accompanied by hiccups with a dash of gagging.)



. . . lawnmower.



I’m so ashamed—also a little ticked off.



“We’ve got machines (John Deere riding lawn mowers) that are twenty years old that look better than your lawn mower.”



That’s the stinking excuse they used to reject our stinking extended warranty request to weld the stinking busted strut back to the part where all the whirly parts are; you know, the whirly parts, the parts that do the actual cutting of grass. Okay, our lawnmower is only three years old.



“This machine has been abused.” Those were their exact words. “Abused.”



My husband fixed an accusatory eye on me when he related the diagnosis—warranty, null and void—due to lawnmower abuse. Like all abusers, I attempted denial first.



“Sherwood, you know I always park that dumb lawnmower in the barn. It has never been outside when the tornados kick up.”



“Linda, It’s not rain they’re talking about. It’s the stumps, barbed wire, roots, water faucets, welcome mats, hoses, bird carcasses, cement blocks, and saplings that you’ve managed to run over.”



I tried anger next, of course.



“Well, anytime you want to climb on board mister and mow in perfect, symmetrical rows exactly the width mentioned in the owner’s manual, you just climb aboard.”



“Linda, you need help.”



“Darn right I need help. I could use a part time lawn man/chauffer! You know, driving Miss Linda!” I snapped this last bit out with more bravado than I felt.



“No, I mean a support group, so you can work through some of this anger you have toward lawn maintenance equipment,” he said.



I started to whine—the third phase in a lawnmower abuser’s cycle.



At this moment the children filed into the room along with my neighbors and the girl from the cleaners. I gasped. It was an intervention. I bowed my head and wept and not for the last time.



The day they brought the lawnmower home (still busted), I was dying my hair and still wearing my plaid pajama pants with a pink sweater that I wear to muck out the barn. I had no makeup on—which means that I had no eyebrows, and I was at the hair dying stage where I put the highlights in my hair, which means that my hair was spiked out from my head in a halo of bleached, well, spikes. I looked like a killer clown from outer space.



One of those repair people stood next to my John Deere lawn tractor trying to explain their reasoning for denying our repair request.



I held up my hand and stopped him, mid-sentence, “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t intend to enter this thing in a beauty contest.” I saw his eyes dart to my prickly head. “It mows just fine, and as far as abuse goes, I never used it to mix cement but I could have. I could have.” I saw him take a step backwards when he noticed that I had no eyebrows. “Just go. We will make do.”



He went. Quickly.



We have “made do.” My husband bought a four hundred dollar arc welder and welded the the lawn mower back together himself, and then he welded one of our gates back together, and now he’s run out of metal to weld together, so I’m worried he’s going to start making giant metal yard art sculptures out of old tuna cans. I’m worried, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to run over them with the lawnmower.



Happy year that is new,



Linda (Mow Fast, Mow Hard) Zern