Man Vs. Machine

There I was on a 90-degree day sweaty, pissed off, and glaring at the lawnmower. No-Mow May was over, and it was time to knock down the veritable meadow growing in our suburban yard space.

My yard is a happy place that affords me time to decompress, destress, enjoy the fresh air, get some much-needed vitamin D, and give our homestead some love-labor. All during the month of May, I had ignored the mower’s call. But since bounding out of bed at five a.m. the first Saturday in June, all I wanted to do was mow.

I lovingly changed the mower’s oil, poured fresh gas into the tank along with a bit of fuel stabilizer to zap the winter sleepies. Yet, try as I might, I couldn’t start the machine.

Aghast at the lack of even a sputter, I let the mower rest for a minute or two and gathered up a rage storm.

My target: The ripcord.

I grabbed onto the handle, ripped hard. The mower didn’t start. Seething, I reeled back for round two, pulled again.

Still, the mower didn’t start.

Nostrils flaring like a bull staring down a matador, I ground the balls of my sneakers into the earth to anchor myself, and yanked the ripcord as hard as I could. My arm jerked across my upper side, the cord handle clutched inside a white-knuckled grip.

Then it happened; I pinched it.

I screamed, released the handle as if it were a bee, clutched my hand to my right breast to shield it from the burning heat of the sun.

But it wasn’t the sun that caused the heat.

Somehow, I’d managed to catch a tiny (and incredibly sensitive) bit of flesh between the plastic ripcord handle and the ripcord itself. The spreading heat was the instant inflammation of what I later discovered was a welt shooting across the ole areola.

Machine = 1; Man = 0.

I never did get the mower started that day.

***

Do you have a man vs. machine story to share? Drop it in the comments, and let’s laugh—or cry—together.

♥ Fallon

P.S. The mower problem turned out to be a spent spark plug. After changing the plug the following weekend, the machine started, and I finally got the lawn mowed. No more nipple-pinching involved.