MMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm

Remember how the lawnmower was held together by drapery hardware? Remember how awful it was? I shudder at the recollection as well, but my neighbor came over and prounounced T.O.D. on ol' Red this past Sunday. Nothing to be done. R.I.P. in Briggs&Stratton heaven, Good Friend. You were loved and will be missed. I saved up my own lil pin money and bought that ol' Red long time ago. Just this past Mother's Day, I learned how to take the blades off and sharpen them with my orbital sander. I know, the gift that keeps on giving.
But it was time to let go. I know. She was ready.

Fortunately, I managed to weave through all the stages of grief in time to go buy a new damned mower. Not easy and not without psychological consequence, but I needed it. Our neighborhood needed it. It's bad enough that we decorate for Halloween with a certain earthy abandon that can only mean we're witches (b/c either you are a Baptist or you are a Witch and I believe in Transubstantiation and some other uppity unliteral stuff and am therefore not a Baptist), but the unlovely lawn, well, that was call for a thrashing of some sort, I'm sure.

Got out all my tools. wrenches, pliers, gator grip thingies, ready to roll. Put that "replacement" lawnmower (that will never be part of this family, you can take that to the bank) together and just get the job done without sentiment or affection. I don't need a lawnmover to fulfill a need, you know? But have mercy, you know they come almost completely together now? That last one, well, I practically needed to soder parts of it before I could use it. Almost anticlimactic.

She's a sweet push, I'll tell you what. Yessir. In and out and around the gardens and up and down the hill in front...she did the job. All the neighbors were waving at me (always genteel in my overalls and bandanna) and it was nice.

Let me be perfectly clear here: It was not Red. Never could be Red. But it was okay. Nice, even. I may come to love again.

I don't know.