Sissified...

Sissified...

Last month after my friends helped me move into this house sitting gig, we were standing around doing manly stuff like drinking beer and eating pizza. One of the guys - dean? - disappeared and came back a few minutes later to announce "I left the seat up for the next guy." It was a great line, because at the time we were throwing off pretty hard on the home owner's decorating tastes.

Now over a month later I won't say I'm attached to the bright colors and inspirational angel girls (I covered that calendar up), but I'm at least not noticing them as much. But once a week I get out and mow the lawn, and that still pushes me over the edge. See, the home owner's idea of a lawn mower is this sissified battery powered wimp thing that hums while it chews through the lawn. It's awful. Gutless. Whoever designed this thing should be ashamed.

I've learned that when I start out, I walk as fast as I can so I cut as much as possible before the power drains out of it. But no matter how fast I move, by a third of the way through the postage-stamp sized back yard the meter is sliding hard into the yellow zone. By the last couple swaths it's in the red and you have to walk sloooowly so the blade can keep up with you. It's a mower for angel girls.

This was brought home to me as I ran it this afternoon and my neighbor, a good ol' boy with a beer belly and a baseball cap, came around the corner of his house to watch me and shake his head in wonder.

I wanted to hollar "By god, the seat's up" but I didn't.