Today, I tried to start my lawn mower. It’s about a year old. MKL got it for me. A Toro – a nice lawn mower. Nicer than my lawn.

I don’t have what you could call a lawn – I have dirt with weeds that grow thigh high in no time.  And grow they do if I don’t attend to them.  Which I haven’t been, what with work and playing and, well, not liking mowing dirt.

The lawn mower (which I think needs a name) has a BIG seal emblazoned on the top that says “Guaranteed to Start”.

It lies.

It didn’t.

I checked the oil. I added gas. I looked for a primer thingy (nope). I yanked on that starter cord like…well, I can’t even provide an analogy that isn’t unseemly. I even read the manual – and I was amazed that I had the manual.

I called MKL.

Now, I ask you, why did I call MKL?  He’s a car guy, and in my head, I thought car = (approximately) lawn mower. They both have motors. They both take oil and gas. You can run things over with both of them.

Poor guy.  He’s 45 miles away and doesn’t have a manual, but he does have a computer with Windows 8 which frustrates the hell out of him. He was trying to help by looking the model up online.

Of course, the manual offers you four different model numbers. Sooooo not helpful. And all they show you online is the same manual.

I don’t lose my temper often anymore. I used to have a terrible temper, which everyone says I inheirited from my father. He rarely lost his temper either – he’d learned how to control it over the years, just as I have.

But not today. Today, I lost my temper with a machine.

My former (and now late) neighbor, Charlene, was a ranchwoman. She was a soft-spoken woman except when she was trying to herd recalcitrant cattle. Then, the air above the ranch was blue with her curses.

That was me. And I was loud. I’m surprised the neighbors here didn’t call the police. Unfortunately, I still had MKL on the phone, since he was trying to help. I had to reassure him that I wasn’t swearing at him, but I know how angry I sounded. He said that he’d take a look at it when he came home tomorrow. And that just set me off.

I am a smart woman. I know this about myself. And I HATE when I need a man to fix something for me. I don’t believe that I should EVER need a man to help me fix something.  I knew when I left my marriage that one of the things I needed to prove to myself was that I COULD DO ANYTHING, because I had been told in many ways for many years that I was basically incapable and illogical. That’s why I get extremely frustrated when I find something that stumps me. Like the lawn mower.

I said goodbye to MKL as nicely as I could. And kept adding gas and yanking on the starter and guess what?

It started.

And the weeds are now about as high as a tennis sock.

I had to apologize to MKL and be sure he still wanted to marry me.

Thankfully, he does.

But I have no faith in anything that offers me a guarantee.

Especially that now my phone has decided that it has erased my SD card with all my vacation photos on it.  And tech support for T-Mobile won’t let me log in.

Can anyone spare a Valium?

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