Mowed Down Before I Had a Chance

May 15, 2004

Hey, all — a bit of a late post tonight (or technically, tomorrow morning… well, technically, I suppose it’s ‘today morning’, but that’s just splitting hairs, now isn’t it?), but I wanted to tell you one quick thing that happened to me today.

(Okay, so maybe it’s not a ‘quick thing’. I’ve never really been ‘quick’ about telling you folks anything, come to think of it. Still, what I said up there in the last paragraph has a better ring to it than ‘Let me blather on for a couple of thousand words about next to nothing before finally wrapping up this train wreck and letting you get back to your life‘, now, doesn’t it?)

Okay, so anyway, here’s the thing: I woke up this morning at a few minutes past ten, to the sound of a lawnmower. Now, normally. this wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Ten-plus in the am is plenty long to sleep, and I’ve got no special aversion or allergy to the sound of a good Briggs and Stratton mower.

Unfortunately, though, as I shook my drooling self awake and gathered my wits about me, I determined that this was my Briggs and Stratton engine providing the concert. And that’s both ‘B’ and ‘S’, in my book.

You see, it’s my job around the house to mow the grass. My wife, she’ll whack the weeds (not euphemistically speaking, of course), and tend the flowers, and generally see to it that the lawn in is good order. But mowing — that’s my burden, and I’m happy to shoulder it.

Except… last week, I missed my window. On Saturday, I put off the job, thinking (and saying, too, as I recall) that Sunday would be just as good a day — perhaps even better — for the mowing extravaganza to occur. Only, as happens so often, it rained on Sunday before I could get down to my grassy business. And I get home pretty damned late most weeknights, so the grass had to wait a whole ‘nother week before getting its trim.

My wife, to her credit, was largely silent throughout this period. I caught neither hell nor shit nor grief during the week. However, it was made perfectly, crystal clear to me that the grass was to be mowed this weekend, come hell, high water, or hungry, hungry hippos.

And then, of course, I hurt my leg.

(And a big bunch of humbled, amazed and grateful thanks to all of you who wished me well after my calf-snapping experience. I’m feeling much better today, though still limping — yesterday, though, was a hobbled, hellish hoohah of cripplehood. I was not so happy, let me tell you. Now, better. Then, cranky. Let’s just focus on ‘now’, if that’s all right, eh?)

Anyway, that’s why it was a bit of a shock — and dread-inducing fear — to be awakened to the sound of my own lawnmower, perhaps being used in anger against me. As it turns out, my wife — as always, really — was cool about the whole thing. Still, even after my injury, I said I’d mow the lawn, no matter what. Never mind whether I really meant that I’d mow the lawn this weekend, or believed that I’d be well enough to mow the lawn — I said I’d mow the lawn, and that’s what I intended to do, or break off my leg trying. So I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when my wife came back into the house, the dirty deed already done.

But, as I said, she was all cool and shit. She knew it would have been a struggle for me, in my current condition, and she took one for the team. That’s just one reason why she’s the shiznit, you know? Never mind the fact that she still made me go shopping with her for hours this afternoon for bathroom vanities and accessories, or that I had to carry many of said ass-drooping heavy accessories up the thirty-plus stairs to our house. At least I got to do all of that (which I might expand on tomorrow, if I remember) on a fully-awake brain and a stretched-out, limbered-up (though still crippled) body. And that’s miles better than oozing out of bed, into a pair of shorts, and mowing the damned grass. So, really, I still owe her one. Cool.

Anyway, that’s my story for now — it’s bedtime, and I simply don’t have the mental bandwidth or the clock time to tell you abou the other things that went on this Saturday, from the shopping ordeal to the dinner out with friends to all the shit I caught for my recent gimpiness.

(Okay, so that’s all you’re likely to hear, now or later, about the hell I’m catching for having a bad leg. It’s like nobody ever limped before, in the history of mankind. Cut me some frigging slack, goddamit! Bitches!)

So, for now, I’m gonna limp off to bed. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good day, which was not what I expected when that mower engine woke me up right outside my window. But in the end, all is well, and hey — now I don’t have to mow the grass for another seven days or more. Maybe I should snap something in my leg every week!