The 1980's birthed certain icons that applied Hypercolor to the canvas of our lives, and to me, MacGyver was a paintbrush in the hands of Bob Ross. Never before had a piece of Juicy Fruit, a plastic spoon and hemorrhoid cream had the capacity to dismantle sinister plans of world domination. The man could do anything, anytime, anywhere. But in the spirit of "hey ya'll, watch this", I have failed him.
Picture it...Buford, Georgia, 2013. The children are inside playing, my husband is out looking at a potential new house with a friend, and your girl Semantic Sister decides to do some yard work. Rake a few leaves, clean out the flower beds, and wrap it up with a spin on the old Husqvarna. Everything starts great...straight out of the NumNums with Nature section of Highlights magazine. Braxton comes outside with me, and we begin unearthing creatures from the flower bed. Our haul included 7 earthworms, a spotted Salamander, and some eight-legged son of a gun that had me in the fetal position sucking my thumb. Braxton and Emma capture the friendly ones and open their worm farm for business; they're still awaiting their first paying visitors.
So, onto the action. There's just something about a riding lawn mower that brings out the redneck in all of us. Struttin' towards the shed like John Wayne through the tumbleweeds, I throw open the doors and prepare for battle. Crank it up, back it out of the shed (without shifting it on it's foundation this time!), and head around front. The front yard gets mowed, everything is smooth sailing...and I approach the back. I can't promise that I heard a blood-curdling scream as I drove through the gate, but it was definitely a possibility.
Let me preface this by saying that our backyard was apparently a mine field in a past life. Enormous craters, steep drop-offs, and remnants of explosions and experiments that I can't begin to fathom.
So I'm cruising back to the wire fence on the back, along the edge of one of these steep banks. I could plead the fifth, but I will be forthcoming and admit that I have lodged the mower on this hill several, several times. My husband knows that when it the mower goes quiet and he hears the backfire a few seconds later, he needs to pull me off the hill. But little
I hit the gas on that bad boy, and am determined to not get stuck on the hill. *silence* Yep, that silence was me getting stuck. Insert MacGyver theme song. Hey, no problem! I've seen my darling use an extension cord as a towing rope to pull it off of this hill before, and I can definitely do that, right? Well, I don't have the four-wheeler keys, but I can back my Navigator back there and tow it off the hill. Braxton sees me backing my truck up, and has the nerve to say "Mom, I don't think we should do this." Can you believe the nerve of this kid, to doubt my MacGyver mojo?
But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Fine, I say, let's try to pull it back up the hill. One, two, three...PULL!!! Do you know what pull stands for? Previously United Lumbar (now) Limp. Slippery hill + flip flops + the most uncoordinated person since Peg Leg Pete hopped on a pogo stick= I hear angels singing! I'm not sure where my coccyx was last week, but as of lately, it's serving as a petry dish for the fluid on my knee. First injury: out of the way. I took one for the team, broke my buttocks, and moved on to the plan involving the truck.
Back it up, tie it up, ready to roll. I ask Braxton to turn the steering wheel so that once I've successfully towed it out, it won't roll back down the hill. So, technically, I did not tell him how far to turn the wheel. Nevermind... crank up my truck, put it in gear, slowly pull up. It's at this point that my genius plan morphed into a disaster that has left me unable to walk erect or enjoy my couch without ye old padded butt cushion.
Pull, pull, pull...*#&$! I'm a lady and I don't like to use my angry words, but if I did, I would've gotten my money's worth here. My husband's idol, I mean lawnmower, is no longer stuck on the hill. It's now sliding into the wire fence....down the hill....upside down. I flipped the bad boy in about 3 seconds flat. Fortunately, no one was under it, no one was on it, and no one was injured. Shut off the truck, apply the emergency brake (because anything less would be unsafe!), and hop out. Well, if you turn it upside down with a truck, surely you can right it with a truck, as well. What goes down must come up, right? I'm pretty sure that's what Sid the Science Kid said. So I untie the cord, retie it around the steering wheel, and reposition the truck to flip the mower upright. I begin to pull up when I hear a loud pop. Oh God, my career dissipation light is going into overdrive, as Billy Baldwin would say. I lean under the mower and am relieved to find that the pop was just the seat hitting the ground. Can I get an "atta girl" for not breaking the steering wheel?
Granted, my feet are now covered in gasoline from the leaking tank, but thank God, this is one Cox family story that doesn't involve fire. Round Two: slippery mud + gasoline+ delusions of He-Man strength= a dance move I named the Coccyx Crumble. Flat on my butt, again. Covered in gasoline, again. The mower is sliding, again. My pants are now soaked in gasoline. As a mom of boys, all I can think is 'Dear Lord, if I fart, I'm going to blow Dacula and half of Buford into the Georgia Dome.' Fortunately, my ankle caught the mower on it's way down the hill...even stopped it. (Yeah, I'm bragging!) All movement has ceased. I'm pretty sure I'm drifting towards the light. No, not that light, just the headlights on the mower that's now twisting like a slow-motion disco ball.
At this point, I go in the house and light a candle in remembrance of my previously clean driving record. I leave the darned thing upside down, one slight shift away from the ravine behind the fence, and honestly not giving a rat's behind. I glance down and see the elephant man gnawing on my ankle bone. But when you're wearing the potential Flaming Drawers of Doom, you gotta shower...case closed.
Today was Sunday. I'm still mastering my walk to be in the 'Walking Dead', the elephant man vacated the premises after leaving me with a wicked foot hickey, and I believe the children fed my coccyx to the worm farm. And do you know what I did this afternoon? I mowed the backyard.
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