Starting All Over Again.

About every three or four years my lawn mower will commit suicide. Just stop working, joins the choir invisible, it just stops running. It is possibly my fault, maintenance is not a strength. Perhaps they sense the animosity, technology and I are not friends, and the internal combustion engine is one of the earliest examples of technology run amok. Also, I am very concerned about climate change, and lawn mover engines are terrible producers of green house gases, you might was well use chlorofluorocarbons to maintain your lawn. Then there is the white knuckled horror every time I use it, "will this be the time something terrible happens, an accident that leaves me bleeding to death on the lawn, my severed foot thrown into the neighbors bushes?" Obviously, our relationship is strained, at best.

Whenever we take them in to be looked at the guy, whoever we choose, will say, "Oh, the (insert some mechanical term that sounds ridiculous but costs a fortune and is the very essence of a gas mower here) and it will cost (insert the price of a new mower minus about forty dollars here)." Why would I even think about paying that return life to a machine that terrifies me, and with whom I have developed a mutual loathing? A zombie mower, filled with explosive gas waiting for me to "fire it up." No thank you, good riddance to bad rubbish, that's my motto, at least my lawn mower motto.

Last week the newest enemy shuffled off this mortal coil, and I wasn't surprised. 

Unfortunately, neither was my long suffering wife, who has come to accept the fact that she is married to the doctor of death lawn care person. She doesn't even blink when hearing the "lawn mower won't start." She doesn't even question what happened. She just pulls out the advertisement with the new gas powered monsters and says, "oh, here is one you like." I don't know how she does it. Maybe she senses when the mower is growing dim, or maybe she just looks every week and circles the best deal, knowing that sooner or later she will need it. But she is always prepared.

She had circled a 7.5 (insert correct dimensional description here) 21 inch gas powered, self propelled beast with electric start. I said, "Ooh, this one looks nice," pointing to a "reel" style mower that had no engine, no battery, just blades, wheels and a handle. My dream mower, no noise, no fumes, no terror. Oh, the beauty, the simplicity, the heartwarming nostalgia.

We went to the store and bought the gas demon. And we begin the battle to the death, we will see who comes out alive at the other end, I am rooting for me.

Actual Mower, Simulated Question.