Friday, November 15, 2013

John Mellencamp 'John Mellencamp'


Since Keith in France asked... The title of each blog entry is the musical choice for my day. It's the CD that I drag around with me to enjoy while driving. And I rip it and keep it on my MP3 player until the stock in the 30GB rotates it out. I chose a disc for each day. It's my OCD thing and yes, I know it's funny.

Why do I use my CD of the Day as the title?

Well quite frankly, I'm too lazy to find a catchy title and I'd like to give you a peek into my music collection. You know... For what it's worth.

Now on to my update...

I found myself walking through nearly a foot of dead leaves in the backyard the other day. I slipped and nearly fell as made my way down a small hill. Leaves can be slick even when they’re dry.


Sam has been too busy with extracurricular activities to dedicate time for leaf sweeping the yard, so I decided I would give it a shot. How hard can it be to drive a riding mower?

Well…

I got that joker started, but I couldn’t find reverse. There was no gear shift! The only thing that looked like a gear shift was the lever that controlled the height of the actual mower bladey thing. (I think they call it a deck) There was a bright yellow lever near the steering wheel, but I didn’t understand its purpose. So I sat on a running mower reading over the printed instructions that weren’t very clear to me. I saw no mention of using reverse so I uttered “Screw it” and turned it off.


The leaves were going to wait until a more capable person came along.

I felt a little defeated. I had a beer ready to roll with me. I had my Zune MP3 player and ear buds ready with random musical goodness. I was prepared for leaf duty.

And dammit, I can drive a straight-drive car or truck.

That’s all I ever heard during my life. All those years my father drove it into my head… “If you can drive a car with a manual transmission, you can drive anything.

Well, it looks like my father never warned me about the John Deere riding mower and it’s elusive reverse.

Here’s the real kicker…

The next day Sam and Chigger hit the lawn with an all out assault on the leaves. Sam was riding around the yard sweeping up leaves on the riding mower. Chigger was armed with a rake and leaf blower. They fought Mother Nature’s confetti cannon for an hour until grass was visible.

Me? Where was I?

I supported them with KP duty. I prepared sandwiches and beverages for the hard yard workers. I even took them the food so they wouldn’t have to stop. I cleaned the kitchen. I did laundry. I even did a little sweeping and vacuuming. I was mother-fo’ing Hazel!


I was told by a jury of two that it was probably a good idea that I not learn how to drive and operate the riding mower. At first, I took offense to this ruling. But it only took a few minutes to get over it and pop open another beer.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the clarification of why you use Album titles for your blog. I always wondered, but never asked. Based on what I've seen, we have much of the same taste in music. Although, some of your CD's, I have never heard of....lol

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  2. I've mentioned it before several times, but Keith was right. It needed to be mentioned again. Thanks for reading!

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  3. It's funny how if whatever it is you're doing doesn't doesn't work automatically, or doesn't do all the work for you, you're quite quick with the "screw it." Your powers of deduction have completely vanished into thin air.

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