by asking my youngest son if he could please mow the lawn today. Usually he's pretty helpful, but today all I got was an "I'll think about it." I wasn't too pleased with that flippant remark and I decided to do it myself and remember his remark to return to him sometime in the future, like when he was hungry and wanted dinner. When I went out to the garage I found the pull cord on the lawnmower was broken so short that it couldn't be used. I think that could have something to do with Christian's reluctance to be involved with the lawn mower today. To be fair, the cord was already messed up and not his fault. He was probably the unlucky one to be using the mower when it broke the last time. So, I decided to get out the tools and take the thing apart, go to Mark's Garden Shop and get a new cord. After an hour of fussing and sweating I finally got enough pieces removed from the thing to get the pull cord starter assembly out. I got in my car and half way down the block I came up behind my neighbor in her SUV blocking the street. She got out of the car walked back to mine and said she was out of gas. So I and a couple of my neighbors helped push her to the curb. She's just had a baby with a follow up surgery so I offered to carry her baby back to the house, but the other neighbors had a full gas can and offered to help her out so I left them to it. When I got to Mark's Garden Shop I was dismayed to find that the cheap piece of crap lawn mower that I own is made in China and you can't just buy the cord, you have to buy the whole disposable starter assembly. So $40.33 later, I'm the proud owner of a nylon pull cord that I still have to put together. They offered to mount the starter in the cover that I'd spent an hour sweating and cussing to get off the lawnmower for the small additional fee of $30, but looking at it and seeing only 4 screws and an indentation that would leave no doubt of how exactly it needed to be mounted, I said "I think I can do that myself." When I questioned him about the price of the labor, he looked me right in the eye and offered to cut that fee in half. I'll remember that for the future too. The thing went together relatively easily and I only had one bolt left that for the life of me I couldn't find a place to stick. Only another 45 minutes of sweating in the hottest part of the afternoon and the lawn is mowed, before it started raining. So, Ken if you're reading this, that's why I didn't call you back. Now, to the tune of the thunder in the distance it's on to cleaning my gigantic much hated bathtub. Then I'm going to take a leisurely shower and have a cold glass of my favorite wine.
I deserve it!
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