Entry the Seventh

I had a very interesting weekend past. I say ‘interesting’ instead of ‘bloody awful’, because I like to think of each thing that happens in my life as a learning curve instead of a ‘disaster’.

So, Sunday comes around and I decide that maybe I should assemble the lawnmower in my garage so that we can finally put away the panga’s we have been using to travel from one end of the garden to the other, and maybe find that dog that has been missing for a few days.

I open the box to be pleasantly surprised that the only "assembly" required on the actual lawnmower is to lift the handle into an upright position and tighten.

I flex my muscles Johnny Bravo style and bask in the brilliance of me.

Then I see that the plastic-grass-catching-thingie (yes that is the technical term) needs to be assembled. No problem. I mean it is just a plastic-grass-catching-thingie. Right?

Instruction (1) Place both pieces, so that the hooks and screw openings line up.

Yup, okay, but it doesn’t line up. Let me push it a little here. No, still not working. Let me poke here. Fuck that, this is not working. Let me move on.

Instruction (2) Hook the clips into the openings. If this is difficult, use the small end of the spanner provided.

Yeah, now we are talking. A Spanner!

So I push and try to clip. Nothing is working. Ciara - get me a screwdriver. Now using screwdriver to try and push the bloody clips into the hooks.

Bam! I stab myself in the thumb with the screwdriver and start bleeding all over the bloody place. I am using all sorts of interesting and fancy words. My mother pipes up with the useful comment "I was just going to warn you that that might happen." Well thanks a bloody lot. I mean, you couldn’t have warned me, say, before I stabbed myself in the frickin thumb?

Long story short (okay, that ship has already sailed), the blood loss must have caused an epiphany.

I suddenly realised how to use the small end of the spanner and got the thing assembled in about 10 minutes after I stopped the blood flow and bandaged myself up.






Footnote : I love my mother very much, and after her helpful statement, she did say things like "That was really sore" and "Are you okay, will you still be able to mow the lawn?".