The Rural Voice, 1991-06, Page 8dism
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4 THE RURAL VOICE
FIX THE LAWNMOWER
OR ELSE *#@$!*%*&@
Gisele Ireland is from Bruce County.
Her most recent book, Brace Yourself,
is available for $7 from Bumps Books,
Teeswater, Ontario, NOG 2S0.
Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I
wonder where the mower is? Super
Wrench knows, but he isn't holding up his
end of our partnership and doing anything
about it.
We've gone through all the old lines of
a song all farm women know by heart.
"Getting on the land" is priority number
one. Grass is like a carpet, it looks good
but brings in no dollars. Be patient, the
first rainy day I'll get around to it. Soggy
April came and went, and still no lawn-
mower appeared. To say that my anxiety
level was approaching "fed up" stage is
putting it mildly. After all, I've fulfilled
my role. I fixed knees in pants, changed
the sheets periodically and even scrubbed
a few windows. Super Wrench was sup-
posed to live up to his name and get a
grass chewer operative. That's not asking
too much, is it? I'm even willing to push
it. Just get one running.
In desperation, I approached the
hallowed confines of the men's shop in
search of a grass machine. I knew there
were two push jobs last year that Noah
had brought on the ark and one rider that
more or less limped through last year's
grass. I finally found one push machine
under a pile of tires. I prominently put
it in the centre of the shop floor. 'Nuff
said, I demanded action by that simple
gesture.
The grass was past my ankles and
thicker than the bristles on a boar who'd
wintered in the woods when Super Wrench
finally presented me with a machine to get
the job done. It would have been nice had
it had all four wheels on it, but at this stage
I wasn't going to be nit picky. It lumbered
around the yard exactly three rounds be-
fore it choked and died. I pulled the rope
until my lungs were coming out my ears,
but couldn't get any life. Regretfully I
approached the shop, wherein not one, or
two, but three mechanics were busy as
little honeybees getting the innards of a
tractor back together. My expression must
have made an impression.
Within hours, I got the second Noah's
Special pushed to the lawn, a little
grudgingly, I thought. This one was an
improvement over the last one. It had all
four wheels on it. The major drawback to
this mower was the fact they must have
wired it wrong. It shook so hard that the
control jumped from rabbit to turtle con-
stantly, choking itself out. The fact that
the grass was prime hay material didn't
help matters much either. The finishing
touch was when the spark plug blew out of
the machine at 100 m.p.h. and got me in
the shin. Bent double in agony, I picked it
out of the grass and got third degree burns
on my fingers. When I rolled this baby
back to the shop, I was hotter than the
mower.
Super Wrench himself detonated the
fuse to a major explosion. In his long
suffering tone he informed me he had
"better" things to do than to keep running
to the lawn and "helping me out" in a job
that any kid on the line could accomplish
with his hands tied behind his back.
The walls of the shop echoed my sen-
timents loud enough that all three cretins
therein who called themselves "mechan-
ics" could hear and understand. I made
impolite references to their manhood, their
ability to even be in a shop and holding a
wrench, and finished off by slamming the
door hard enough to make a few tools
bounce around.
Fear must be a good motivator. Not a
soul showed up for coffee and cookies
during the afternoon. I could just imagine
womanhood getting another bad rap when
they discussed at length the unreasonable-
ness of the fairer sex. There wasn't a re-
morseful bone in my body, until close to
five o'clock.
While scraping the vegetables for
supper, I heard a sound I thought was
going to be extinct at our place. Lo and
behold, out on the lawn, there was a rider
mower valiantly eating up the grass and a
shop mechanic driving it. Mind you, he
was a little hunched over as he came by the
house, whether in actual terror or abject
shame is anyone's guess. It certainly
makes one question what motivates men.
Was it the fact that a hot supper might
have been in jeopardy, or they feared the
radiation fall -out from another explosion,
or were they just simply ashamed of their
attitude? Whichever it was, I'm not going
to analyze it to death. The important thing
is, spring has sprung, the grass was mown,
and Super Wrench was able to enter a
peaceful home.0