Being single means doing things that the other half used to do. While there isn’t a whole lot that I didn’t do in my past relationship, it now falls on me to do it ALL. Paying the bills, mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage and gardening about sums up my list of new responsibilities. Some of these have turned out to be easier than others.
Take mowing the lawn for instance. A simple task. Start the machine. Push it up and down the yard. Done. Well, that is all fine and good when the machine works. Let me set the scene for you. I was mowing the lawn for about the third time. The kids were with their father, it was warm out but I was enjoying the exercise. I noticed that the mower was responding in weird ways to my turns, but what do I know about machines? This could be perfectly normal. I was halfway through the backyard, when I turned the mower to go around a tree. The handle turned with me...the mower did not. The handle had completely disconnected itself from the mower, which continued to purr along happily. I released the safety bar and gave silent thanks that a safety bar even existed. Hmm, what to do? I crouched down to see where the handle attaches to the mowing part. Aha! I spotted the problem immediately! The screw had come out and gotten lost along the way. Well, being the resourceful independent woman that I am, I went into the house and grabbed my sour cream container of screws, nails and unidentifiable bits and brought them out the mower. “I can fix this” I thought. I was confident. I did in fact find a screw that would work, it was the right size but had a weird threading thing going on. I grabbed it, hopped in the van and headed to the hardware store.
Once I located the “never before visited” aisle of screws and such, I compared sizes and found exactly what I needed. I brought it to the cash and cheekily placed it on the counter. My squared shoulders surely said thing like: “Yeah, I buy screws. Cause I fix stuff. I’m handy like that.” “What size is this” asks the cashier innocently and Pfffffffffffff. Just like that, the air is popped out of my balloon. I fished around in my pocket and produced my faulty screw. “Um, the same size as this one?” Probably not the answer she was looking for but it was all I had. She giggled a bit, likely seeing right through my handyman facade and charged me $.30 for my screw. Humbled, I grabbed it and returned home to get to work. Screwdriver in hand, I reattached the handle to the mower. I gave it a good tug and a shake, just to be sure. Satisfied, I returned my tools into the house. (I’ve heard that handymen always keep their tools organized so that they know where to find them - makes sense) I came back into the yard, started up the machine and resumed mowing my lawn like every responsible homeowner should.
Three steps later, the wheels fell off. Not one, but both back wheels were suddenly and inexplicably no longer attached. Once again, the mower continued to hum. Once again, I released the safety bar. The newfound handyman in me made me bend down to take a look at the source of the problem. The stressed out, frazzled insane person in me wanted to scream obscenities, kick and possibly lay on the ground in full-blown tantrum fashion. In the end, I tried to drag the thing back into the garage. When that proved to be too difficult, I threw my hands in the air and walked away, leaving it in the yard. I resolved to get a flower to plant in the top of it and convert it into a shabby chic planter. To do list for tomorrow? Lawnmower shopping.
This story has a happy ending. That night, I went out for dinner with one of my besties and lamented the curse of the lawnmower. Being the good friend that she is, she concurred that lawnmowers were likely the spawn of the devil. When we returned from dinner, lo and behold, there sat my lawnmower in my driveway. Wheels attached. In my mind, it sparkled and I’m pretty sure it had a huge red bow on it. My incredible neighbour had noticed the deplorable state of my lawnmower, sitting desolately in my yard and had taken it upon himself to repair it. Not only did he repair it, but he finished mowing my lawn for me. Kindness really does exist. I thanked him of course, but I’m not sure he will ever really understand just how much that act of kindness meant to me.
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