Lawn Update
I love Amazon.com. You can buy a lawnmower from them and pay no taxes and it gets delivered in 2 or 3 days, and the UPS guy even carries it up the steps for you.

What you may not realize, however, is that the electric lawnmower you buy doesn't have an electric cord packed in the box with it. Not even a shorty piece of junk. So you have to strip all the extension cords from the lamps and TVs in your house and string them all together, 8 feet at a time, because you Want to See If This Thing Really Works.

And yes it does, once you put it together and realize that you'll never get the silly plastic pieces that are supposed to fit around the handle in their holes correctly, because they must have changed the design since the installation manual was printed, and they look nothing like what's in the manual, even tho the model numbers are the same.

But before you go out and buy one for yourself, you must get a magnifying glass so you can see the assembly diagram. Tech manuals come in 2 flavors right now, those for the blind and idiotic, where, wordlessly, a picture you can see from 10 feet away shows how to plug something into the wall, from point A to point B, with big simple pictures, or the lawnmower book kind, that tells you in tiny print in 45 languages printed on tissue paper incorrect information with diagrams no bigger than the head of a pin.

Someone out there said using an electric mower is more like vacuuming your lawn than mowing it. They are correct. It makes a similar roaring noise, and you spend most of your time trying to keep the electric cord from strangling yourself and your garden gnomes.

But I like it. It starts instantly, with none of the hilarity onlookers find so appealing, as the owner leaps around in frustration, yanking arms out of sockets, tipping mower over to try to clear obstructions and spilling gas, etc. etc. The passing women give shy smiles of solidarity (except the blonde Republicans, who probably don't understand why I don't just have my husband do it or call a lawn service). Or the men, who think, it serves me right for trying to be uppity and independent and not asking my husband to do it.

Now they can just trip over my newly purchased 100 foot long orange extension cord while I save the environment and probably electrocute myself.
- posted by Cynthia @ 4:14 PM | | | Link |