Blonde Moment

I'm not one who has them normally, but Sunday I had what I hope to be the only one this year.

As you recall, I just bought a lawn mower from Kimmy's dad. I got it last weekend, and it worked like a dream for my first mowing of the season. Truth be told, it was the first mowing of my life. I know, I know. I had brothers growing up who did all the mowing, and when I moved out on my own, I rented, so there was always a landlord who did the mowing.

So, back to the story at hand...

I brought the mower out yesterday for the second mowing of the year. It started just fine, but after only a few passes in the back yard, it started making a weird noise, then it quit. I emptied the bag, which was only half full, thinking that might be the problem. It still didn't start. In fact, I couldn't even pull the cord - it was completely frozen up. What to do? I called Kevin.

Kevin, in turn, called his father-in-law.

In the meantime, I called Tim (my brother-in-law) to see if I could borrow his mower to finish my yard. He offered to come over and take a look at mine to see if maybe he could figure out what was wrong. Once he got there, he immediately turned the mower onto its side and said "There's too much grass underneath." He cleaned out the grass and it started right up. Great! I was, however, still a little leery since it didn't do anything like this the last time I used it. While finishing the back yard, it died twice more, but each time started right back up after I cleaned the grass out from underneath. I was about halfway through the front yard, when Kimmy's dad pulled into my driveway with another mower!

I felt like such a jerk. I didn't expect such a fast response. In fact, I was just thinking to myself that since the mower seemed to be fine, that I better call Kevin and tell him that it was a false alarm. I should have done it as soon as Tim got it running again, but I wanted to make sure it really was fine. I can't tell you how bad I felt that Kimmy's dad made the trip to my house for nothing.

When I went in the house, I noticed that Kevin had called to tell me that Kimmy's dad would be out at 7:30 with a replacement mower. I didn't hear my phone ring because I was outside mowing with the mower that didn't need replaced.

There you have it. I guess it's a common thing for lawn mowers to shut down when there's too much grass underneath. Let this be a lesson to all you first-time mowers.