My lawnmower is an asshole

Note: I wrote this article on July 17th, 2009 at 5:00pm Mountain Time, if you wanted to know. It was summer then, but I'm posting it here in winter. Figured I'd let you know that before you start to wonder if Canadians mow mounds of snow in their spare time.

In the course of my brief existence on earth, there are several inevitable activites that I've come to dread. Going to the dentist, renovations, getting my hair cut (only because my hairdresser doesn't speak english), and the one which will be the focus of my contempt today: mowing the lawn. For as long as I care to remember, I've been involved in a cruel and exacting feud with my lawnmower. It's a contest of strength and dignity, a battle that routinely leaves me wearied and ashamed.
　
Apparently no one in my family is capable of mowing the lawn besides me (kinda like how no one is capable of shovelling the walks in winter), so I'm always the one left to do it. This is probably not the worst thing that could happen to me, but you don't yet fully appreciate how shitty my lawnmower really is. Come to think of it, my family may be smarter than I am... Anyway, lately I've been really down in the dumps because Emma Watson refuses to make out with me and won't return my calls, so to cheer me up, I was ordered to mow the lawn this morning. However, this was to mark the first time I was genuinely looking forward to mowing the lawn. You see, I've just recently acquired a new, impressively more badass lawnmower. One lawnmower to rule them all, and in the darkness... put a finger in your ass and laugh. I've affectionately named it, The Supreme Grass Fucker:

Behold the big dusty fat ass

I sincerely expected all manner of sexy bitches to flock to me and my slick ass lawnmower when I fired it up. I expected all those sexy bitches to massage my well tanned, muscular, glistening body as I sculpted a lawn so glorious, you'd question at the end whether you were gazing at a lawn, or the right ass cheek of God himself if that makes any sense.

Yes it seemed like nothing could go wrong, until I tried to turn it on and realized it wasn't charged. This meant I had to enlist the services of my old lawnmower, the one I hate. On reflection, I suppose it could have also been an opportunity to just charge it and mow the lawn later, sparing me from ignominy, but I have an innate inclination towards self-abasement. So I had to put big sexy back in the garage, then move all the strange, dangerous shit in my garage to make way for the old crusty dick lawnmower. What you're about to see, I can only describe as the distant cousin to the rape van outside the concert:

Was the sight of me taking pictures of my lawnmower confusing for my neighbour? Very possibly. Is my lawnmower a hunk of shit? Yes. The first thing that should have struck you was the fact that my lawnmower is bright red and very gay looking, adding to the humiliation of using it. Allow me now to draw your attention to the gimped front right wheel. That wheel leaves you handicapped in the area of general maneuverability, and is typically the catalyst for a volley of swear words, and to my neighbours, what appears to be a grown man kicking the shit out of a lawnmower in broad daylight.

My lawnmower has a few other defining qualities. The grass that's permanently embedded into the frame, making the back a royal pain in the ass to emplace. But the main one that probably went largely unnoticed, is the fact that this lawnmower isn't gas powered, but is in fact electric. That brings me effortlessly to mentioning the infamous cord that haunts my dreams. Seriously, it does:

Don't be fooled, for behind the cunningly treacherous and deceitful facade of a regular cord lingers a disquieting evil. One that somehow frequently tangles itself and gets in your way every chance it gets, for no reason other than to trigger episodes of violence, typically towards children, and arson. Depends how I feel.

So I wheeled the lawnmower to the front yard. After about five hours, I managed to unsnarl the cord and plug it in. I approached my lawnmower, and I was about to turn it on, when suddenly I was overcome with a feeling that has somehow never occured to me before mowing the lawn. It's similar to that of the one I'm faced with everytime I turn on my xbox 360, or my toaster. Jesus, this son of a bitch might explode.

... sadly not. So there I was, mowing the lawn. There would be no sexy bitches rubbing my body, pausing only to dump buckets of sunscreen on each other. There was just me and my weak, pasty body with the weird hairs around my nipples, subject to the quiet judgement of my neighbours, who I'm sure watch me whenever I mow the lawn.

The main problem is the cord. It always gets in your fucking way, no matter what methods you take to prevent it. You end up having to turn off the lawnmower, whip the cord behind you, then start again. As I mentioned earlier, the fact that the back of the lawnmower was never really designed to snap into place, isn't helped by the barricade of petrified grass embedded into the frame. So your shins are treated to a ceaseless bombardment of grass shrapnel with every step.

My lawnmower is also a tad schizophrenic. It can't seem to decide on a tone. The amount of effort it puts into cutting the grass seems to be completely arbitrary. Most of the time it seems to struggle with grass more than an inch tall, whereas other times it'll rip shit up with force lightning, Emperor Palpatine style.

The cord is then quick to remind you that it exists solely to drive you mad. It'll get stuck on anything it can and bring the project to a humiliating, screeching halt. Like today when the cord popped out of the lawnmower, and I discovered the problem was that the cord mysteriously lodged itself inbetween two sidewalk blocks, which doesn't seem physically possible. That incident was simply more evidence to support my theory that the cord has a mind of its own.

You see, whenever my lawnmower gets too full, it creates a chemical imbalance that causes the back of the lawnmower to tilt towards the ground, because the front isn't heavy enough to support it. And because the back of the lawnmower is never really fully secured, it enjoys snapping off, treating you to a small pile of grass upon your return to the lawnmower. Whenever this chemical imbalance occurs, the cord always pops out, and it's always a fair distance away so you can't stop the lawnmower from being a jackass, causing the chain reaction, which yes, does often include me punching children in the stomach. You may suggest preventative measures such as, giving myself lots of slack on the cord, but then you have to deal with moving the goddamn thing out of your way everytime you want to move. The only purpose the cord serves is to annoy your tits off.

Also, a bug flew into my eye.

I did finish mowing the lawn, but it wasn't a moral victory. I'm atleast comforted by the fact that I will never use that lawnmower again. When big sexy is up to speed, I intend to rent out a highrise apartment, just so my old lawnmower will fall further when I hurl it out the window.