Saturday, December 19, 2015

AS SMOOTH AS SILK



Much to the dismay of some of our readers as to how we find out what goes on about town we do sometimes have to admit that we too make some silly mistakes. One of our more recent episodes, and I use the word we to disguise who we are really talking about, was the day that we repaired our own ride-on mower. Rather than take it down to the expert living near the Sports Arena I decided to have a go at it myself.

The first thing to do was to turn it on its side and watch the petrol spill and stream towards the lit incinerator, of fire I seem to never learn. After that little panic with mop, shovel, sponge, towel and lots of kicking up of dust I was able to also stop the oil from pouring out by shoving a rag down the filler pipe and securing with masking tape. The seat decided to part from its position and the mown grass redirector (whatever its offical name) split assunder. So much for getting the machine into a position to work on it.

Needless to say I did manage to get the revolving thing holding the blades off and I was then able to see to the bearings thing that spun the thing that held the blades that cut the grass. I sometimes amaze myself with my correct usage of technical terms, for example I know a ‘litter’ is both a mess and the thing what stops the wall from falling down on a door.

To cut a long story short I completed the task and righted the machine. I waited at least 24 hours for all the liquid bits to settle back to where they should be and started the mower. Fantastic! As smooth as silk, never sounded so good, perfect balance.
Off I went to cut grass. Trundled along for a while but could not figure out why there was no grass shooting out the back of the mower. Stopped and put stick under to see if blades spinning. Nothing happened. There were no blades on the bloody spinning disc.

I went back to my outdoor workshop with the knowledge that nobody sore my mistake and this time by driving the mower half up on to the trailer was able to crawl underneath and attach the blades. Why did I not think of that before?

OK! Off we go again. A bit rougher riding this time but at least the grass was being cut. To my dismay after about a minute or so I saw out of the corner of my eye what appeared to be an unidentified flying object shoot across the ground towards where the dog had been pooping itself just seconds before. It flew low and was taking the tops off the longer grass as it went finally slamming into a dead tree stump. The mower suddenly ran smooth again.
I stopped the mower and I ambled over to the foreign object to notice that the entire undercarriage had given way and allowed the spinning blades to take off across the ground at a terrifying speed. It was at that moment that I uttered several words that required censoring, jumped back on the mower and promptly took it down to the mower mechanic.


To his dismay he heard me say ‘you can keep the @$&^()*^%# thing’ and stormed off home.

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