Tony Bax

When telling people how to get to my peaceful country oasis, which is rare these days (thanks, Google Maps), I give them street names and then say “You’ll see a really, really big house …” and then pause.

And wait.

And then I add, “Yeah, that’s not ours. Turn left and go two houses down and that house is ours.”

The Big House was built well after our peaceful country oasis, and it absolutely dwarfs our home. Two people live in this mansion — and that’s what it is: a mansion. It’s also inhabited by a menagerie of animals … cats, dogs, bunnies, et al. I have never been inside The Big House, but, before today, I knew of the owners. Let’s call them Darren and Betty, because if I’m gonna be Tony Fucking Bax, they are going to be Darren and Betty. They are a kind older couple, probably in their early 70s, and they open their estate to our dog when we go on vacation because Betty loves dogs and our dog loves … Darren.

Betty? She likes Betty.

Darren? Darren, she loves.

Anywho, The Missus is the one who deals with the dog drop-off and pickup and, thus, she has more of a relationships with Darren and Betty.

And that gets us to my lawn mower.

Yeah. I know. Kind of an odd transition. Don’t worry. We’ll get there.

We’re having a surprise party on Saturday for my mother-in-law.

“But Tony, aren’t you worried your mother-in-law will see this blog post and the surprise will be ruined?”

No. No I’m not.

First, remember, I’m not Tony Bax. Tony Bax is a pen name. See the first blog entry on this stupid site.

Second, my mother-in-law wouldn’t know a blog from a frog, and if it weren’t for my pro bono I.T. maintenance visits to her senior living community, she would long ago have blasted her now ancient computer into oblivion through all the weird conspiracy theory crap and other right-wing junk she looks at and downloads. There is not a link my mother-in-law won’t click, and that’s not a good recipe for a healthy computer.

So no, good Tony Bax’s MIL ain’t gonna find this site.

Back to the story.

The lawn was in need of mowing prior to this Saturday shindig we’re hosting, and considering that it’s gonna dump buckets on Uranus tomorrow, today was the day to get it done. I got my morning work done and, with a calm period ahead, cranked up the ol’ Poulan Pro.

Yes, I have a fucking Poulan Pro. I wanted a John Deere. They were too expensive at the poverty-stricken time I bought a lawn mower, so here we are.

Now, to be fair, the ol’ Poulan went without maintenance for years. Years, year, years, years. As I said in the previous blog on the Great Mole War, Unhealthy Me did jack shit beyond the few things he could get his depressed ass off the couch to do. And even Non-Depressed Me was never very handy with any sort of machine.

On top of that, I also wasn’t in a great financial spot back then to be having anyone competent do anything in the preventative-maintenance arena. So I kinda went on the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” theory.

Well, now I’m Healthier Me and also Wealthier Me, so about a month ago I gave the ol’ Poulan a tune-up. YouTube is an amazing invention, and through it I learned how to change the spark plugs, change the oil, the fuel filter, and the air filter. And aside from a small mishap involving too much oil, she ran like a dream.

Until today. Ungrateful bitch.

I was about a quarter of the way through the mowing of the peaceful country oasis when the ol’ Poulan died. One minute, we were puttering along, cutting grass, smoking a cigar (me, not her), and belting out 1980s rap lyrics (again, me, not her. New Style, by the Beastie Boys, if you need to know), and the next minute she just stopped.

What. The. Fuck.

I’d run the ol’ Poulan out of gas before, and this was no, gas-tank-on-empty situation. Then, she putters a bit, kicks back on and keeps going, putters some more, and eventually dies. Here, she just died.

Still, I checked the gas tank (stupidly dangling over the thing with a lit fucking cigar like a total moron) and saw there was, indeed, petrol in the tank. Checked the oil. Good there, too. Efforts to restart the ol’ Poulan proved unsuccessful. She would crank and crank and crank, but she just wouldn’t turn over, which I’m sure are the technical terms true motor-heads would use.

Well fuck.

I was confronted with a quarter-mowed yard and what amounted to nothing more than a big paperweight sitting in the middle of the front lawn.

Unhealthy Me would have panicked and lost his shit and made the life of everyone who had the misfortune of loving him absolutely miserable. Yes, I was kind of a jerk like that. Healthier Me? Healthier Me solves problems.

I contacted Elder Son, age 24, married, working in the Big City, to see if he might have a mower he could bring me in that fancy-shmancy pickup truck he recently bought. I’m proud of that kid. But he was, as mentioned, working in the Big City and going to the Big City Baseball Team’s game that evening. He told me I could go pick up an old push mower he had in his garage. My car is a tiny blue sports car. I can barely fit hedge clippers in the trunk.

And so I talked to the Missus to see if she could text Betty, as I didn’t have her number. In the past, Betty had told her that if we ever needed a tool or some sort of gizmo, Darren probably had it, and I needed a lawn mower.

Betty said Darren would be happy to help and would be over in about an hour to mow the lawn.

Two things on that.:

1. I felt bad that perhaps I had gotten Darren voluntold into mowing my lawn, and I didn’t really want him to do the actual mowing. I just needed something bigger than scissors with which to do it. But …
2. Men don’t like when other men touch their toys.

So it was completely understandable that Darren would not want to simply drive the mower over from The Big House and let me use it. Ladies, you probably don’t understand it, and that’s fine.

Men, you get it. *Fistbump*

And so there I was, back in my office chair doing the work of the day, when I heard a mower start up from afar. The sound got closer … closer … closer … and then there was the familiar grind of the blade being engaged. Soon, Darren was doing laps around the yard, grass shooting out the chute (why can’t we just call it a shoot?). Within 20 minutes, thanks to the wide deck and high speeds with which he is able to mow on that thing, he was done. The lawn was mowed.

I’m not quite sure who first said “It takes a village …” and in that case, of course, they were talking about raising children. But it also takes a village to get through this crazy thing called life. Oh, sure, we try — more and more these days, it seems — to go it alone. But that isn’t how it’s supposed to be, it rarely works, and it certainly isn’t as rewarding.

Darren zoomed off back to The Big House before I could thank him. I texted Betty to pass along my thanks. She texted that she hoped he did a good job because “he drives that thing like he stole it.”

I’m glad the people in The Big House are who they are.

Postscript: While all of this was going on, I called a local engine/tractor repair place to see if they did onsite visits, sort of like an old-timey doctor’s house call. Yeahno. This ain’t Walnut Grove and the Doc Baker of small engine repair ain’t riding any buggy out to my house. They were, however, happy to pick it up and take it back to their shop to work on it … for $60 each way. Fuck. But they could (and did) pick it up the same day, so I agreed. It was like a lawn mower ambulance ride to the tractor ER. I hope she pulls through.

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