lawnmower
The season is just about over for this grass eater

With the end of summer, there is the end of lawn mowing. I won’t miss it, that’s for sure.

Broke Ass Mower

This year, the mower, which turned 3 years old a couple weeks ago, took a turn for the worse. It started blowing blue smoke, which I’m smart enough to know is oil. Burning oil, to be precise. We bought the 3 year warranty, which means that after taking a basic look at the mower, I determined it was best to take the mower in for service. I didn’t want to fuck with it, since I am not the best when it comes to home improvements or mechanical things.

After driving it out to one of the few remaining Sears here in Salt Lake, they told me that I needed to take it another shop as Sears now does NOT provide warranty on their lawn mowers. Seriously? What kind of jacked up world is this where the department store that I bought the mower from and the actual warranty is from Sears, and they don’t fix them anymore?

Ok, so the next day I drive to the other side of the Salt Lake valley to the shop that now offers Sears warranty, only to find out that they are not doing warranty repairs for Sears, due to their lack of not providing payment to them in a reasonable amount of time.

I had a nice chat with the lawn mower tech and after he took a look at the mower, I found out that the air filter was the issue. I told you I wasn’t mechanically-inclined, even though I’m smart enough to change the air filter on my car every 3,000 miles.

Ten bucks later, I am in business again and the mower is working better…. until the last 3 weeks. When it started blowing blue smoke again. So now, I take the air filter off, blow it out with compressed air, clean oil gunk from around it, then go back to mowing.

I’ve had to do this each time before mowing the lawn. Have I mentioned yet that I am no fan of mowing the lawn, yet because I love my wife and she nicely asked me to take over mowing the big ass yard years ago, that I just do it. I do prepare myself with an iPod and some type of alcoholic beverage to get through it each week without bitching too much.

Someone Else Mow This Lawn

Perhaps it’s time to hire this job out. Yes, I get my Fitbit steps and exercise, but this mower might not make it past winter. I am fearful this $500 mower isn’t something that was meant to last. Speaking of lasting, our previous mower made it 10 years with only a couple of repairs along the way. I might have to pour some money into this mower to make it last another couple of years if we don’t go with a service.

I would much rather pour a cocktail while watching someone else labor over the yard. Let’s pick this back up in the spring time, shall we?