Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.The green monster lives and I am not talking about baseball By J. G. Fabiano It seems like it was only a few short days ago the grass surrounding my home was short, dry and brown. Overnight it regained its vitality from the warmth of the sun and it now displays a healthy emerald color. The only problem is it also displays a length any farmer would be happy to call his hay field. It was now time to take out my lawn mower that has been hibernating since last November. I stored it under the steps of my garage with other 'summery' things like rakes, garden hoses, brooms, and my dilapidated old beach chair. I am always surprised by how dirty the floor under my steps looks after I pull out all my summer tools. I can never figure out how it gets that dirty other than maybe some winter gnome found a home for his family. The day I find a little hut and mini-lawn mower is the day I go to Shady Acres in an attempt to find my ear lobe. After a quick sweep I place my not-so-worn snow blower, snow shovels, and winter books where the summer stuff once slept. I feel kind of sad for my summer stuff because it looked like I woke it up from a very restful nap. I also know I intend to go to war with the green monster that now surrounds my house. The first thing I have to do is change the oil and the spark plug in my mower. Every year I search for the socket wrench I purchased the past year to accomplish this task. Every year I can never find it thus I have to go to my favorite Trustworthy store to purchase a new one. I have the same problem with the socket that fits the bolt that allows me to empty the oil out of the machine. Maybe it has something to do with that gnome? After I soak up all the oil I spilled on the garage floor and clean off all the oil from my new spark plug I dropped in the oil I push my readied mower onto my lawn. To my dismay it does not want to go. I don't know if it is because the lawn is too high for the wheels of the mower to overcome or it simply does not want to go. With one large push I get the mower onto my lawn astonished by the fact it seems to be laying on top of the grass and not on the soil under the grass. Within seconds I watch as the mower is sinks into what it is being asked to cut. I then pull the chord hoping to hear the hero of my lawn explode into action. To my dismay I can't even get the pull cord out of the machine. It seems the super lawn under my mower will not allow the blades to turn. All I could wonder is what was in the fertilizer I purchased the year before. I then pulled the mower out off the lawn and onto my driveway. This was not an easy task. At first it would not move. It was as if once my lawn attached itself to my mower it was not going to release it. In my minds eye I could see the blades of the grass winding around the blades of the mower hoping to permanently make it a new lawn ornament. After a few 'Advil' tablets I was able to pull the mower onto the driveway. If the machine had been alive I swear it locked its own wheels. Maybe I just discovered where the winter gnomes lived. Time was getting late and I was reminded by my lovely wife I had been working on my yard for the past two hours and all I accomplished was oiling up the garage floor and pushing my lawn mower near the lawn. I told her all was well and I should be done in a couple of hours. I looked down at the pull cord, grabbed it, and with one mighty pull I heard my mower scream out a tiny cough at which time it fell back to sleep. The cord also decided not to go back into the mower. Attempting to find out why I looked into the top of the mower at which time the black t-shaped end of the cord decided to go home but not before it slapped me across my face. As in history when one slaps the other across the face war is declared. I then grabbed the rubber t-shaped end of the cord that happened to have a little bit of my blood on it and pulled as hard as I could that had the effect of making my mower explode. In fact, it came to life by blowing the spark plug right out of the machine. This scared the hell out of me and everyone living within three blocks of me. At first I thought I was shot. Since I was the basic entertainment of my neighborhood for the past decade I didn't think this was the case. But when I saw the last of the flames from out of the mower where the spark plug was supposed to be I knew I had another day to live. But, where did the spark plug go? Walking around my driveway and into the lawn I could not find the shiny new spark plug I had just unsuccessfully installed in my mower. Looking up I then watched my neighbor from across the street walk toward me. He had something clutched in his had. All I could think of was I must have killed either one of his family or his favorite pet. To my joy it had just been a front window. To my surprise he did not give the spark plug back to me. He grabbed my wrench and installed it himself. As he was walking away he was mumbling about how much therapy his wife will need after the spark plug broke through their window and buzzed by her head as she was watching the 'Cooking Channel'. It seems like it was only a few short days ago the grass surrounding my home was short, dry, and brown. Now that it is green it may be time to phone one of those landscape companies before I hurt myself or someone else. The End.
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