Lawn Mowing - and why it blows chunks

After a brief period of blog-death, I decided that something exciting (i.e. frustrating) enough has happened to warrant posting.

Let me preface this by saying that start of school has kicked me in the behind in every sense of the phrase - including the 10+ hours of grading I did this weekend so that I could post grades for our first set of academic updates. It has been a good first four weeks, but I am pooped!

Anyway, after a faculty meeting and trip to the grocery store for someone much needed cat food, I arrived home today to find that everyone on our street managed to get their lawns mowed. Great. It's bad enough that we suck at all things requiring a green thumb, but now our jungle-length, patchy lawn stands out even more agains the nice, pretty mowed lines of our neighbors. We now look like the uncivilized heathens of lawn-care that we are.

So, since Suellen can't mow due to all the waiting, I don my tennis shoes and head out after dinner for my least favorite household chore (please God, give me laundry any day!). Now, my father was nice enough to get me a brand new, shiny lawn mower for birthday since we were on our second hand-me-down mower and it wasn't cutting it (cutting it...hahahaha...I'm amusing myself). However, since it's been so darn hot all summer, I've only used it twice and I've never done anything but mulch with it. Given the fact that our grass is tickling my legs well above the ankles in some places, it's clear to me that mulching just ain't gonna cut it. So I pull out all the various attachments and decide on the little side shooty thing. The grass maybe long, but surely it can just spit the long grass back out? That way I can just run it over with the mower again in some sort of faux-mulching action. This all makes perfect sense in the drive way. Reality, it turns out, is suspended in my drive way.

So, I succeed in mowing our tiny front lawn and most of the left hand side using the side-vent. I'm just putting along, merrily spewing grass chunks until I enter the 'deep woods' of our back yard. After the mower stalls for the 5th time, I decide to switch to bagging, WHICH IS MY ABSOLUTE LEAST FAVORITE THING EVER! Needless to say, I'm pretty pissed at this point, but I drag out the lawn mower bag and a the enviro-friendly paper bag to put the trimmings in, and start the mower up again. I walk about 10 feet and stop again. Why do you ask? Because our lawn is so over-grown the grass trimmings are forcing the bag away from the body of the mower so that it clogs up anyway!

So (yes, this is now the 3rd paragraph I've started with so) to make a long story somewhat shorter. After an hour and forty-five minutes and 12 re-starts of the lawn mower, we can now show our faces in the neighborhood. I am so thrilled to have done my part to keep America beautiful.

Now it's off to bed, where I will lie awake trying to thing of intellegent things to say about the literary merit of the pilgrims tomorrow. If you have any thoughts, I'm open to telepathic communication.