I have learned my lesson to start saying no more often

My wife says I have a bad habit of never saying no when someone asks me to do something.

She says what’s worse is they don’t even have to ask. All they have to do is merely act like they need help and I jump in trying to be a good neighbor or friend.

The other day, our neighbor lady needed her lawn mowed. She’s elderly and lives alone, so I figured I’d help her out.

Also, since her house is at the end of our fence, it’s not that hard just to mow her yard when I mow mine. Her yard is small, and it takes less than 20 minutes to mow it.

That seemed simple enough at first.

I soon discovered her yard is a mud hole. I got the zero-turn mower stuck on the first pass. This caused me to have to walk all the way back to my house and get the sideby-side. I also had to hunt for a chain so I could pull myself out.

Still, it was no big deal, or so I thought.

The lawnmower made ruts almost as bad as if I’d drove my dozer through her yard. The side-by-side dug in when I pulled the lawnmower out, leaving two sets of ruts.

I felt bad about that. So, I got the tractor and scooped up a big bucket of dirt from the roping arena. I also brought the wheelbarrow to fill in the dirt to where the ruts were. As I toted wheelbarrow loads of dirt, the yard became mushy and muddy. On top of my wheelbarrow tracks, I spilled dirt almost every time I took a load to the ruts.

What I thought would take 20 minutes ended up being a half day. I liked to never have those ruts filled in and I just kind-of raked my wheelbarrow tracks down flat.

But it’s an obvious thing, though, there’s no hiding it when someone pulls into her drive. Hopefully, the rye grass seed I put down will pop up soon and kind of blend in my well-intentioned disaster.

My wife laughed at my misfortune and said, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

I guess I’ll learn to mind my own business in the future.

EDITOR’S NOTE: James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.