Ok, so I will remove the kid gloves and vent like I mean it.  And I do. 

Last night I had to take the HK Yaris over to the local Toyota dealer for a minor warranty issue.  The right headlight was getting some condensation between the layers of plastic in the lens and housing- a common concern here in Central Ohio Swampland, especially evident during Monsoon season.  I saw more than enough of these when I worked in dealerships, so when I saw the condensation building up in that lamp I figured I’d best address it right away, since it is a warranty issue.  It’s hard for any vehicle manufacturer to construct a lamp assembly of any type that can remain water-tight in a place that gets the rainfall we do here.  It wasn’t a major deal, but that’s one of the reasons why cars have warranties.  While their techie is milking the gravy train (.7 of an hour to R&R a headlight assembly isn’t bad, when an experienced tech can do it in 5-10 minutes, or about .2 hours) changing out my headlight, I sat and chilled out and played a few solitaire games on the DS. 

Hanging out in the waiting room (or “customer lounge” as they call it) was tolerable except for the TV was on the same lame-ass news loop the whole time I was there, and there was some foreign dude who looked like he was from a terrorist harboring country yapping on his cell phone in some unintelligible gibberish.  I’m sure it was a real language, but I have no clue what it was.  German, French or Spanish, I know enough to get slapped- and can understand a word or phrase here and there.  This was some language I had no clue what it was but it reminded me of the noises cats make when they mate.  It might make sense to cats, who knows?

How do I know if he was giving his terrorist buddies the latitude and longitude of the Toyota dealer so they could bomb the place?  Or, he could have been doing what Steve-o does when he converses with his German-speaking friends- mocking those around him.  I can picture that pretty easily.

“Dude, there is this old cougar, who looks sort of like a weird, ill-proportioned troll, sitting over here playing solitaire on a DS.  Man, this is lame!”

I continue to play solitaire and say to myself this guy is harmless and he’s just mocking me to his buddy over in where ever it is that they speak the cat mating language.  So I get my headlight changed out, free of terrorist incidents, to my relief, and I go home.

I knew I was in for an evening from hell when I came home and the dogs were in their crates.  That could only mean one thing- Jerry’s at the hell hole…after swearing up and down he wouldn’t renew his membership there, but of course, he did.  Nice. Not unexpected, though.  I was born at night, but not last night.  I knew he was lying out his ass when he said he was not going to renew.

Not more than three minutes after I get in the door, Tipsy McNumbnuts staggers in.  He insists that he has to mow the grass tonight.  At the same time he is insisting that he is going to need a new lawn mower because the old one probably won’t start.  I should have known at that point to do anything to keep him away from anything involving gasoline, machinery or sharp things.  Then he goes on and on how he needs me to help him mow the grass.

Excuse me?  How in the hell I am I supposed to “help” you mow the grass?  That’s the one thing I’m not doing.  If you want me to mow grass, then consider doing your own laundry, cooking your own meals, getting your own scripts, putting your own crap on E-bay, (wiping your own ass…) the list goes on and on. 

Apparently what he wanted me to do was follow him around while he mowed the grass.  I have absolutely no idea why.

I think he wanted a new lawn mower (and there wasn’t a thing wrong with the old one, until he trashed it.)  But I think he wanted to get my attention, get a new lawn mower,  AND be able to somehow blame me for the old one’s demise.

I stayed outside long enough for him to start the mower up- and it fired up and ran beautifully.  I figured my work outside was done, so I could go in and at least attempt to fix something for dinner.  Yeah.

About five minutes later he comes storming in the back door screaming that I broke the lawn mower.  Granted, he was pretty damned drunk, but I couldn’t see how I could have broke the mower if I was in the kitchen washing dishes. 

Apparently, because I wasn’t watching him, (???) he ran over the metal rod that has been in the yard forever and ever, that he knows about, and jammed the motor completely.  It is officially FUBARed.  Now, I am the first one to accept blame where it is due, but it seems to me that the drunken operator of the mower might have had a lot more to do with its final catastrophic failure.  I will also add that this is a self-propelled push mower, not a rider mower.  Ohio is so weird about DUI that the cops can bust you for drunken mowing– if you’re on a rider mower.  They can bust you on a motorized bar stool too.  This actually happened to some redneck in Newark.  So technically (as far as I know,) drunken mowing is legal- as long as it’s a push mower, and you’re not driving it.

Ingenious, yes, but still motorized, and you do ride it. 

If there is some sort of ordinance against drunken mowing with a push mower, I’d like to know about it for future reference.

Tonight I get to go with Cap’n Happy to procure another lawn mower- at his expense of course.  If he thinks I’m buying him a new lawn mower to reward his wanton trashing of a perfectly good one, he has another thing coming.  If I were to buy him a mower, which I won’t, I would buy him one of these little beauties:

I don’t see how he could destroy this one unless he ran over it with the truck or something.  I am not looking forward to clomping through Sears, Lowes or wherever he decides to go trolling for deals on mowers.  Not at all.

This little foray into home improvement hell with the biggest drama queen on the planet ought to be as much fun as a dental cleaning, a pelvic exam, and a full body wax- all at once.

I might buy him dinner if he behaves– at White Castle.  Mmmm, sliders….