Hick's Horror Story: The Lawnmower Man

Now that spring has sprung, an old man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of mowing. Hick is no exception. He got out the riding mower, and gave it a spin. Wednesday evening, he had a story to share. To him, it was just another day on Shackytown Boulevard. To me, it was a horror story.

Please understand that my re-tell is likely to get some details wrong. When Hick starts touting the specs of his machinery, I go all Charlie-Brown-teacher-listening. WAH WAH WAH. I will pick up occasional words, like a dog hearing its name, or TREAT, or GO FOR A RIDE. I've found that like reading a technical manual, some words may be skipped without affecting the message.

"I ran over a stump and MESSED UP THE IDLER PULLEY ON MY MOWER. I took off the deck to see if I could fix it. That's a part I broke before, and I replaced it with what I could find. I might need to drive halfway to the city and get the official part for it.

Anyway, I figured while I had the guard off that I'd take the blade off and sharpen it. I just sharpened it last year, but it never did seem to cut better--"

"I remember. You'd be out there mowing for two hours, and then the next morning, I'd think, 'Huh. That grass sure grew back fast!' Because even watching you mow, I couldn't tell that the grass was getting shorter. I thought maybe you needed to lower the blade. I could see the marks in the grass, but it didn't look freshly mowed like usual.

 

Why do you need that pulley thing?" 

 

"It's on the drive belt. The mower won't run without the idler pulley keeping tension on the drive belt. I just welded it because I didn't have the exact part, but now I broke it again.

Anyway... I took off the blade to sharpen it, and I seen that I'd put it on backwards! You know, I'd noticed that I kept scalping the area around where I'd had the tractor parked, and out by the edge of the road. I wondered why my blade was so low that it would kick up the dirt, but it didn't cut the grass really short in the rest of the yard. Now I know. The blade has a little bar on top of it, to kick up the grass so it shoots out the side of the mower easier. Only that bar had been hitting the dirt, scalping the ground. With the grass, it just bent it over, but didn't cut it."

 

"So you were just combing the grass all that time? And that's why I could see the mow marks, but the grass wasn't much shorter?"

 

"Well. There's two blades. It's a 48 inch mower deck. So the OTHER blade was on right. It was cutting. Then I'd go back over half the section I just mowed, and I guess the good blade cut SOME of the grass that had just been beat down by the upside-down blade."

"THAT explains why it looked like you kept missing parts. Like with a push mower, when you don't line up the wheel over the edge of where you just cut, and leave lawn mohawks between rows."

"Yeah."

"Heh, heh! You spent HOURS mowing all summer, but you weren't really mowing? Just enough to keep the grass down enough that it didn't look weedy?"

"I guess so. I tried to remember when I last had the blade off to sharpen it, and I think it was the beginning of the summer."

Hick didn't seem to be upset about his wasted mowage. I suppose there's no real drawback to riding around the yard on a mini tractor on a beautiful summer day, wearing a straw hat and no shirt, drinking a beer.