Remember when I said I was going to die at the hands of my murderous spouse that one time? I would like to redact that statement in light of recent events. As fate would have it, probability is now putting my passing in the much more immediate future in the light of my recent mowing expedition. You’re probably thinking I almost got my hand chopped off reaching under the mower or that I nearly ran over my own head or something that is normally associated with lawnmower injuries and fatalities, but such is not the case in my instance. No, my near death experience came when I almost drove the lawnmower off of a cliff. Ok, cliff may not be the right word here but it’s as cliff-esque as you get when it comes to back yards. See for yourself:
It may not look so terrifyingly bad to the casual observer, but imagine driving off of it on a 500lb machine that would invariably flip on top of you as you fell, landing on you and crushing you against the hard earth and rocks. That’s what flashed through my mind anyway as I came to within inches of the edge. It totally wasn’t my fault though, I am a good driver: I go on speed One around the edges and always make sure I have a buffer zone between me and the sheer drops. But Cole, didn’t you know that 55 percent of fatal accidents in the 20-49 year old age range are cause by driver error? Uh, actually I did smart ass, and I swear on my first born child that it was truly machine error. Lemme ‘splain.
Because my parents are thrifty (in a good way), we bought our riding lawnmower at a garage sale, and based on the age of the vehicle it’s safe to assume that it’s previous owners were Pterodactyls. Seriously, I’m thinking of taking it to the next Antique Road Show to see if it has historical value, (because honestly, if this guy can get $300,000 for a Navajo blanket, I’m seriously optimistic that I can coax out a healthy ransom for my lawnmower based on the fact that my item doesn’t run the possibility of carrying small pox), (Native American jokes: Too soon? or just too racy?… probably both). But you guys, this thing is so Neolithic that I originally thought we were going to have to purchase a pair of oxen to drag it across the yard, which might have been the better scenario here considering it tried to kill me. Because one thing about this mower is that it’s transmission is out of control, literally – you can’t control it. This wily little piece of machinery is so unpredictable that the only thing you can be certain of when you throw it in gear is that it will shudder-start so hard you may be launched into the future, IF you survive the whiplash that is. Also, the only way to tell whether you’re in a forward gear, neutral, or reverse is to let your foot off the (faulty) break and see what happens. This is extremely worrisome when, like I mentioned above, you have cliffs in your backyard and you have approximately 5 feet to maneuver in.
So, the whole experience played out like this: I had just reached the end of the lawn by the arbor (see above pictures) and need to back up. After two failed attempts to put Satan’s lawnmower in reverse and knocking over the arbor/almost running over my mother’s garden, I managed to secure backwards motion. This is where things get tricky because a few culminating circumstances really compromised my driving abilities at this point: 1) reverse on our mower has only one speed, Back-To-The-Future fast, 2) I forgot this about our lawnmower, 3) I was so pissed off that I couldn’t get the mower to go backwards that I was completely taken by surprise when it actually did what it was supposed to. So now, in shock and at a break-neck speed, I was backing up when I made the unfortunate decision to turn the wheel and thus send me propelling towards the cliff edge and towards pending doom. In seconds my scrambled brain threw the mower into the opposite gear, all the way to gear Six and, my tires squealing, shot forward inches from plunging to my death, narrowly avoided hitting the AC unit outside and gave the finger to the rest of mowing the lawn and drove my ass back to the garage to get the hand mower.
Stay tuned next week for my thoughts on bagels and the ethics behind baby-head-shaping. It’s gonna be good.
And that’s how Cole . . . C’s it.
I was laughing out loud the whole time. So funny – but the mom in me wants to tell you never to use the lawn mower again. But seriously, I don’t want to mow the lawn. Your pictures and video were so helpful. Loved it!