I didn’t really want to do it, but I was backed into a corner.
A few summers ago, Tim was injured and the doctor didn’t want him to do any strenuous activities for a couple of weeks. That included mowing the yard. I think that bothered him more than anything else because he is very particular about the yard.
Of course the grass grew during those two weeks and it drove Tim crazy. I suggested paying somebody to mow it. He suggested I mow around the house for now. He could get the back yard later. I wasn’t too keen on his idea.
You see, I hadn’t mowed since we moved a few years ago. And I hadn’t missed it at all. Our previous house sat next door to my mamaw and papaw’s house. Tim and I always mowed both yards, which were about two and a half hilly acres with some steep slopes. Hey, it’s East Tennessee.
The slope I dreaded mowing the most was next to my grandparent’s house because it was short and very steep. I couldn’t ride the mower up and down it because their house was too close to it in some places.
As I drove the lawn mower across it, I desperately clung onto the steering wheel. Why did I hang on for dear life? Because I had perspired so much that I kept sliding off the seat.
Even though we don’t have steeps slopes like that at our house now, I still wasn’t comfortable mowing. And I wasn’t used to Tim’s riding mower either he had at that time.
He told me I would be fine as long as I drove slowly. And he reassured me he would sit on the front porch until I finished. So I donned some old clothes, put my hair in a ponytail, hopped on the mower and took off.
The first couple of rounds around the house went fine. Every time I drove by in the front yard, Tim smiled and gave me a thumbs up from his comfortable chair on the porch. Then came my next lap.
As I neared a tree in the front yard, I realized a spider was dangling on its web from a low limb. A large long legged icky brown spider.
Oh the horror!
I quickly assessed my dire situation. If I veered to the left, I would have driven into the tree trunk. If I swerved to the right, I wouldn’t completely avoid the spider. Like I was going to chance having that eight legged thing get on me.
I did consider stopping, backing up, and just totally mowing around the dangling spider, but I couldn’t do that either. If I did, the strip of grass under it wouldn’t get mowed and that would bother Tim.
That left me with only option. Right before the lawnmower reached the spider, I jumped off of it. After it mowed under the spider, I jumped back on it and continued on my merry way.
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
To be honest, I was rather proud of myself. I managed not only to avoid the dangling spider, but also to cut the grass underneath it.
That changed when I started my next lap around the front of the house. There stood Tim out in the yard with his arms extended and hands palm up in the air. He yelled at me to stop.
I did and as he stomped over to me, I innocently asked, “What?” What else could it beside my lawnmower dismount?
“You don’t jump off a lawn mower when it’s going!” He barked.
“There was spider dangling from the tree and I was not about to get it on me.” In my mind, nothing else needed to be said.
“I just swat them out of the way,” he argued. I couldn’t believe he said that, especially since he knew how I felt about spiders. In my story, “Spider in my Face,” Tim learned the hard way my fear of them while we were on a date many years ago.
Again he said, “You don’t jump off a lawn mower when it’s moving!”
“Not the way you mow,” I argued. “I was going three miles an hour. What was going to happen? You think the mower would get away from me, climb the embankment, crash through the privacy fence, plow through the yard next to us, and jump the curb? And it would do all this while going three miles an hour with me running behind it?”
Let’s just say, we agreed to disagree and I haven’t mowed since.
In all fairness, when I avoided that spider, I felt as if I had avoided evil.
“Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” Proverbs 4: 14-15 (KJV)
There is always a way to avoid temptations and other bad things. It may not be conventional and/or convenient, but you can do it. Let me tell you, bad things can be like my dangling spider. Once it is on you, it’s not that easy to get off and it will probably bite you at least once.
A few years ago, we bought a zero turn mower. I like to call it Tim’s zero turn yacht. It’s his happy place. And no, I have never mowed with it and I probably won’t since it doesn’t appear to be as easy to jump off of as the riding mower.