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Spring tune ups
Yards. Grass. Rain. Growth.
It's May. It's about time to be giving that old lawn a shaving before neighbors complain about the knee-high prairie going to seed in front of my house. (At least because of the weed-kill and fertilizer I put on a month ago, they can't complain about dandelions.)
One of the first things seasoned gardeners tell you to be sure to do each fall is to sharpen your gardening tools so as to be ready for the coming spring. What a nice idea. One of these years I may just remember to do that.
Last fall you would have thought I'd have done it, because at the end of the season I discovered our lawn mower wasn't actually cutting the grass. The blade was so dull that it more or less just slapped the grass about a bit. So when the gas ran out, I tipped that baby on its side to have me a look underneath it.
Gross.
Besides looking like we'd been mowing rocks, the matted grass and dirt and green scalloped blades looked to me like a nice job for a man to figure out what to do. Men like gross things, and getting dirty, and fixing broken things up. And we women like to stand by their side, fold our hands to our cheeks, bat our eyes, and say, "Ooo. You're sooo strong and smart."
I took that little old machine to a proper fixer upper shop to have her first ever spring tuneup this decade. Who would have thought that lawn mowers needed spring tuneups? Certainly not I. But I at least knew the blade needed sharpening, if not replaced, in order for our machine to fulfill her true purpose in life. Just like reading and taking new classes keeps the human mind sharp and alert, so filing and taking spring tuneups keep the lawn mower sharp and alert.
Taking it to a shop would be a good job for a woman to do, for women can easily feign helplessness and stupidity whenever they don't want to do those gross and disgusting manly jobs. And besides the fact that men find those qualities very easy to believe, I've discovered the more helpless I am — I mean, appear to be — the more willing men are to talk me through things in the very basic and simplest of ways. So it's win-win all the way around. I get the lawn mower tuned up and sharpened, male egos remain in tact, and I get a little smarter and sharper for the next time around.
The lawnmower is now home and functioning like the tuned up, sharpened machine she ought to be each fall. Now all I'm waiting for is for the weather to cooperate so I can go out and cut, not slap about, our grass. For if it doesn't stop raining soon, we'll be offering backpack trips through the field growing in our own front yard.
Sandy Carlson lives in Battle Creek with her husband. They have two grown sons. You can e-mail Sandy at sandycarl642@yahoo.com.
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