Lawn equipment and cars — two sworn enemies
WALKING through the mall, I was stopped by a journalist who was given a question to ask anyone who would make eye contact with him.
In the biz, we call it a “streeter” and it’s an assignment that’s often given to a nervous junior reporter or, as we joke around the office, punishment for someone who caused the editor a little extra grief that week.
Not that walking around looking for one-line, off-the-cuff answers to — by contrast — life’s deep and meaningful questions isn’t a lot of fun, but people who are out shopping for underwear and cantaloupes aren’t always in the right frame of mind to be blindsided like that.
Then there are ridiculously simple questions that get equally simple answers. Questions like, “What did you do for summer vacation?”
“I dunno … nuthin’ … why, what did you hear?”
Then there’s this guy.
“Hi, can I ask you a question for the local news?”
I say sure.
“Great, so do you think the city’s lawn cutters, gardeners and maintenance crews should be paid more money?”
I really can’t judge that because I don’t know how much they make or what the motivation for the question is.
He nods and looks past me to find someone who might actually have an answer.
But I barge right back in and ask if he wants to hear what I have to say about lawn mowers … rock-and-grasshurling lawn mowers as they relate to automobiles and their drivers.
There’s a long pause, but he says, “Surrrrrrrrrre,” thinking that I’ll only blurt out a sentence or two before leaving him alone to pursue the grand task at hand.
So, I begin by telling him how driving down my residential street in the middle of summer, dodging the discharge from all the lawn mowers, is a lot like Russell Crowe fighting his way to the end of the movie “Gladiator” without losing his life.
I now have his undivided attention. The verbal runoff that ensued had apparently been building up for quite some time and, whether he knew it, this green reporter was going to be my therapist.
I launch into how many people just don’t seem to really care that the debris path from their mowers, which could possess anything from nails and broken glass to rocks and bark nuggets, seems intentionally thrust in the direction of the street for all to run over, or worse, to be struck by. The street, I say while jabbing a finger toward the mall’s giant glass doors, is not a place to spray debris.
I go on to say how I was once struck by a rock through the open window of my moving vehicle, a small speck that was propelled by the spinning plastic line of a gas-powered weed trimmer. It caught me on the cheek and actually broke the skin.
No biggie, really, but your eye — and possible blindness — is only a couple of inches away from your cheek. Then there was the bobbing and weaving for a second, the result of the shock from being struck.
I let him know just how much I despise the inconsiderate and haphazard use of gas-powered lawn trimmers despite the apparent irony that I love the aroma of fresh-cut grass. I preach that the operators, who are wearing safety glasses, should realize that the rest of us are not.
I back it all up by explaining that a local high-brow hotel was stuck with a bill to fix the front bumper of a Ferrari because the contracted lawn groomers blindly scuffed it with a ride-on tractor. To make matters worse, the lawnmower pilot then drove through the parking lot and sprayed the side of the vehicle — and several others — with pebbles traveling at blade speed. The cost, anguish and embarrassment could have been saved by two seconds of thinking before mowing.
With both hands now flailing about the general area of my face and head, I sign off by saying that there should be a bylaw that prevents your neighbors from blowing crud all over your freshly washed vehicle and then sticking a sprinkler in the ground right next to it. Great. Grass covered with hard-water spots.
Hey, I’m not driving on their lawn and wrecking it, so why are they wrecking my car? Is it spite? Maybe they just don’t care?
“What is it with some people and their lawn mowers and gas-powered lawn trimmers?” I ask.
The reporter, who is obviously on my side now, probably out of fear, looks at me with his head cocked to one side and replies, “I don’t know, ma’am, but that would make a great question for tomorrow.”
Sigh.
You can message Rhonda Wheeler by logging on to www.theoctanelounge. com and clicking the contact link. Wheelbase Media is a worldwide provider of automotive news and feature stories.