With the early spring of every year comes my search for someone to mow my lawn. Ever since I became sufficiently disabled that I couldn't do it myself anymore, I have been somewhat at the mercy of my pocketbook and whoever I could scare up to do the work for me. I'm not terribly pernickety about having a perfect lawn, but--like everyone else on the planet--I like things to look good, at least from the street.
For several years, I got lucky in that the husband of a former student of mine was willing, able, and proud of his work. He was also disabled, but it was hard to tell because he was such a hard worker. And then, he and his family moved to another community. It was far enough away that it became inconvenient for him to take care of my yard, but he continued to try. And then the day came that he had a job that consumed more of his time. He still tried, but I finally had to admit that it wasn't working for either of us. His spirit was willing, but his time, distance, and his broken-down old truck were weak. He had used his own equipment, so my lawn mower sat in my mini-barn, unused.
The next year, I hired a professional. He was reliable but charged more than I could afford.
The year after that, I went back to the former student's husband, at his request. He had acquired a riding mower with a leaking gas tank. It leaked gas all over the yard, killing the grass in strips. Oops!
The year after that, my Good Neighbor Fred offered to do the job, for pay. Fred is at least six years older than I. He has a riding mower that worked okay for the front, but he was stuck using his push-mower in the back yard because the gate to my fence wasn't wide enough to allow the rider back there (which was an issue for ALL of my helpers). Why couldn't he use MY mower? Because it had been sitting, unused, for quite a few years.
This year, I was weighing my options when my cleaning gal told me SHE wanted to do my lawn. I quickly decided that I needed to have my old mower serviced. Almost as divine intervention, a post on the Nextdoor website came from a man who does lawn mower repair as a retirement job. He does repairs on location rather than requiring people to cart mowers to him. Perfect for me!
Mr. C. came over several times to work on the mower. He changed the oil, replaced the spark plug, cleaned the air filter, took the carburetor home with him to soak it (or whatever one does with carburetors), sharpened the blades, and replaced the primer bulb. (That's the little rubber doo-hickey that you press several times before starting, to get gas in the motor in order to make it start.) He got it going. I heard it! I heard it more than once!
I was so satisfied that I had done everything possible to help my cleaning gal get started on my yard work. She came over to mow....but....you guessed it...the mower wouldn't start. Blah! I am a woman alone. I know nothing about motors. I just need them to work when they are supposed to. As the lawn continued to grow, I began to consider other options. I began to add up the years since I had purchased the mower. Couldn't come up with an exact date, but what I could come up with was that the mower was probably close to 19 years old. I decided just to buy a new one.
Easy, right? Au contraire! I hadn't budgeted for a new mower this month, but stuff happens, right? I made a purchase online from Walmart--a Snapper 21" self-propelled mulching mower--to be delivered to my house. It was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday of this week. I had a meeting at church that day but figured I would just stick around until it was delivered, then go to my meeting, even if late. Stuck around all day. No mower. Finally, by 6:30, I checked the tracking and discovered that it was "delayed" and wouldn't come until Thursday.
I had stuff to do. Wednesday was totally full with my cleaning gal and the HVAC technician coming to do a tune-up of my AC. That took ALL day. No chance to do my errands.
So...today is Thursday. Knew I was stuck at home until the delivery came, BUT, I had some things I absolutely needed to get, so I was at a local store before they even opened, just to make sure I could take care of that before there could be any hope of my lawn mower delivery. I needed to catch the FedEx delivery dude to have him bring the package inside the house.
Came home and waited...and waited...and then--Hallelujah!--I got the email notification that my mower had been delivered. Except it wasn't. I got in panic mode. Did they deliver my mower to the wrong address? What do I do now?? I got online to find out where to go next. I wanted the company to know that my package had, indeed, NOT been delivered. I wanted them to know right away so they could backtrack and retrieve my lawn mower before it was stolen. What I found, instead, was advice from the website that I needed to wait 48 hours before reporting it missing because "sometimes packages are listed as delivered before they are received at their shipping destination". What the dickens does that mean??
After having put my life virtually on hold for over 1 1/2 days waiting for this delivery, and now hearing that it was delivered when it wasn't...and further knowing that "delivery" doesn't always mean something has actually been delivered...I left the house for ten minutes--TEN MINUTES--to infuse my wine supply. When I came home, true to my luck, the package was on its side by the door. Missed the delivery person altogether. Argh!
My gal came over. She got it out of the box and onto the patio. If all goes as planned, she will have a brand new mower to work with. If it doesn't start, we are back to Square One!
Honestly, all I want out of life right now is to have things be easier than they are. Now, I have an old mower to dispose of and the hope that the new one will work!
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