Spring and lawnmowers

From "The Happening" - alternate title "This Isn't Happening"

Spring has sprung. Finally. Proof positive came today as I drove home and saw a fat shirtless dude running along the river.

Spring not only brings out ill-advised running attire decisions but it also means, at least here in Connecticutistan, that it's time to bust out the lawnmower because the lawn is back!

As I drove home last night, my brother and I were catching up via phone when he mentioned he was racing home because the kid who mows his lawn had just ran over his foot with the lawn mower. My brother is a lawyer and was getting home to make sure his homeowners' insurance was in order. I'm not a lawyer and would have had a different reaction. He texted me this morning to report that the kid only lost a toe nail in the debacle, but was enormously lucky.

I had my own run-in (oh, bad pun) with a lawnmower the summer after my unfortunate freshman year of high school. It involved one of those push mowers with the rotary blades at the front. That summer, like so many other boys my age, I'd gotten a job mowing lawns in the neighborhood. One of the neighbors insisted I use their mower, the aforementioned rotary death machine. Now remember, I was pushing 105 lbs. of teen-age dorkiness and it was summer in Arizona. So I got up early to mow, wearing my school-issued gym shirt, a half shirt. Yes, you read that right - a half-shirt. Anyway, their lawn was still wet from the morning flooding, I mean watering but I went about cutting.  Because the lawn was wet, I had to stop pushing and yank clumps of grass out of the front blades. This went on and on.

And then in happened...I'd yanked several clumps of grass out and gave the rotary a $10,000 Wheel of Fortune-worthy spin. I decided the spinning needed to stop and without thinking, I stuck my hand at the base of the rotary. Good-bye, tip of my index finger on my right hand. Well, it wasn't completely gone but it was hanging. I rolled onto the wet grass and ripped off the ridiculous PE half-shirt to staunch the blood. Quick FYI - half-shirts made of questionable materials for lousy public school districts do not make good bandages. You have been warned. Anyway, clutching my wounded finger, I made my way home. And here's where things get stupid. Or more stupid. My parents must not have been home because I never went to the doctor or ER. I doctored up the thing and hoped for the best. The result? A scar across the top third of my index finger, no feeling in it, and fingerprints that no longer match.

So, the moral of this story? Half-shirts are ridiculous. Stay away from rotary mowers. Just stay away.