No One Told Me It Would Hurt This Way

Do you love the sappy, heartache title? Because it’s totally not about my love life. Really, my fiance and I are great. It’s about weedeating. Seriously.

Let me back up and start from the beginning, all proper like.

I decided to tackle two firsts in one day. Using a weedeater and using a slow cooker (most people call them Crock Pots, but Crock Pot is a brand name and I don’t have that brand of slow cooker).

Now, as it turns out, using a slow cooker was super easy and super successful to a point that it’s not funny. Seriously, there was no humor to it at all.

I cut up the ingredients and put them in with some creamy soup stuff. After it was full I turned it on high and left it alone for eight hours or so. Boom. Done. Delicious, perfect meal. 

Clean up was a breeze, too. You just take the thing out of the thing and fill it with soapy water and forget about it (like preheating an oven). Then when you remember it’s on the counter you just dump out the soapy water along with Ghosts of Meals Past and wipe it down. OMG, best invention ever. 

Thank the Heavens I have a generous soon-to-be grandmother-in-law that had an extra slow cooker that used to belong to her mother. That’s right. I own my fiance’s great-grandmother’s slow cooker. I like to think that it brings back warm, happy childhood memories for him when I cook with it. I know it doesn’t, but, hey, I can dream, right?

Using a slow cooker for the first time went off without a hitch, therefore I don’t need to dedicate an entire blog entry to it. What I do want to explore in depth is the process of using a weedeater or weed whacker or whatever the proper term may be.

Morning comes, morning-ish anyway, and I decide that today is the day that I’m going to cut the grass. As I said in the introductory blog entry, I am technically the only one in the house healthy enough to do this. My fiance has bad knees (he owns two knee braces, not to switch them out or anything, but to wear one on each knee simultaneously) from doing a metric fuck ton of dumb shit as a youngster and stupid shit as a teenager (oh, there were many, many manual labor jobs, too). Our housemate, who is buying the house, has severe allergies. And when I say severe allergies I mean cutting the grass, or going outside after the grass has been cut by someone else, will give him a nosebleed so bad we will have to take him to the emergency room to have his the inside of his nose cauterized. I’m not even joking. The grass could kill him. You can’t make shit up this crazy. 

Any-doodle, today is the day, I’m going to borrow a weedeater from my future grandparents-in-law who live three or so houses down and cut the grass on my small, mostly hillside yard. I don’t know why I said “mostly”. It’s basically all hill with a small flat patch where someone built a tall, skinny house. No complaints, though. It’s cozy and comfortable and keep my skill-less ass off of the streets.

First thing I decide to do is trow dinner in the slow cooker. I did this on a whim that paid off big time, you’ll see why.

Dinner is in the works and I go with my guy to retrieve the grass cutting device that I’m not exactly sure what to call. Down the hill, grab the thing, back up the hill. Whoo, I’m getting a workout before we even start! Abs of steel, here I come! (If only it were that simple.)

We get back up to the house and stand out in the road (like I said, the house sits on a hill, when the hill ends so does our yard and the road begins) as he shows me the basics. 

He quickly explains and points here and there, “You push this a few times, click this up and then back down, and push this in, but not all the way, hold it like this, and then pull this.”

Yeah, I have no fucking clue. There was a bubble looking thing, and a lever, and a trigger, and a string. Whatever. 

I follow the motions, not knowing exactly what any of it is doing, and eventually get the thing started. It was a lot louder than I expected it to be, but not so loud that it hurt my ears. And it vibrated harder than anything I’d ever bought from an “adult bookstore”. I mean, if they could find a safe way to put a motor like this into something handheld… well, you get it. Just a suggestion, anyway. 

I swing this heavy bastard around like a small friend trying to help a big, drunk friend to the car (my upper arm strength is a joke) mowing down patches here and there but making no real progress when my fiance says to hand it to him so he can give me a few pointers and a demonstration. He takes it and moves it up and down the hillside in no time, making it look easy as fuck. I guess it would be easy as fuck right now if I has started over ten years ago, too, wouldn’t it?

He hands it back and I try to copy his movements, still only managing to hit patches here and there. I’m given a pat on the back and a “You’ll get it” as he walks back up the stairs to help our house mate clean off the front porch.

I continue to try and figure out the ins and outs of maneuvering a piece of small machinery I’ve never worked with before, trying different angles and speeds. One thing I did get really good at was creating huge dust clouds and chopping big, brown bald patches into the grass. This yard is going to look like a brown and green dalmatian by the time I’m done. I tell my housemate this and he says he doesn’t give a fuck so long as the grass is cut. See, indifference can be a good thing!

The first thing I had trouble with was the clovers. OMG the damn clovers. They won’t mow down, they just spin in circles no matter how close I get the head of the weedeater to them. It’s so damn frustrating! So I get the big idea to try turning it sideways and go in with a killshot. The clovers mowed down, mostly, and thus my first huge dust cloud wafted up and surrounded me. Check it out, I’m a backwoods ninja sneaking up on grass!

I eventually manage to mow down these awful clovers that seem to want nothing more than to dance with my weedeater string and head up the stairs to to start mowing the small flat area. It doesn’t seem all that complicated, really. I just have to weedeat sideways from time to time causing major tan clouds to crop up with my newly found ninja skills. 

Until I hit a chain hanging off of the porch steps. Several times. It wrapped and twined around the weedeater head like a bow on a gift you don’t really want and I’d have to kneel down and untwine it. Several times. Why is there even a chain hanging around the steps? Oh. Our house mate found it on the porch and left it on the steps because he didn’t know where else to put it. Yes. That makes sense. Whatever. I pick it up after the third time and leave it ON the steps so he can decide what else to do with it. 

I make my way across the flat part. And then backtrack. And then back across. Oh, and backtrack again. I can’t shake the feeling that, even though I see the grass being cut, the yard looks no different than before I started. Am I imagining this? Has the yard become an optical illusion? Am I hallucinating? Did I have way too damn much coffee this morning-ish?

I mosey my way around to the side yard and do some undetectable mowing over there when I hear someone yelling behind me. I turn off this infernal contraption and look around. My fiance is waving me up tot he porch holding a bottle of water telling me it’s time for a break. At first I resist but he insists that it’s important. Instead of being a mega cunt and turning the machine back on I decide to be happy that he cares enough about me to make sure I’m staying hydrated and go sit with him inside and drink the water as he asks how it’s going. ‘He’s not being an ass,’ I remind myself, ‘he’s showing that he cares in a nonchalant way.’ 

I start to tell him about the yard becoming an optical illusion when I realize that my right hand, the one I’m holding the weedeater with closest to the motor, is still vibrating and shaking a little. It’s also really itchy. I look down as I scratch my palm to find my hand surprisingly swollen. When did I borrow Mickey Mouse’s glove? it looks like I’ve been stung by a hive of fucking angry bees. I don’t remember getting into a nest of anything. Have scientists discovered silent, angry, invisible bees that make your skin itch instead of hurt upon stinging? Have I angered a gypsy?

"What the Hell!?" I ask holding my hand in the air for my fiance and housemate to see.

"Yeah, that happens," I’m told, "it’s from the weedeater’s motor vibrating so much. It’ll happen the first few times. Then your body will get used to it.

Get used to it? How many times do I have to look like I’m wearing a catcher’s mitt before my body is like, “Oh, she’s just weedeating, okay, we’re good.”

I drink the bottle of water and enjoy the rest of the chatting. I’m starting to regret agreeing to taking a break because I’m really not wanting to go back out there and finish. I have this same problem at work. Going to break, for lunch or otherwise, and not wanting to go back at all. It’s like a light feeling of dread. It’s one of those moments where all you can say is ‘uuugh’. 

I sneak some of my fiance’s energy drink and drag my ass back out to the side yard to finish up. I try to remember the sequence he showed me earlier when turning the machine on. Push this, flip this up and down, hold this but not all the way, and yank this? Or was it flip then push then hold then yank? I’m not really sure, but I managed to start it after several tries. 

I jump right back into it. I see the grass being cut down as I slowly glide the machine side to side like I was shown in my brief tutorial. Across the yard, the steep slopes that lead down to the road, and even part way up the hill in the back yard. And every time I look behind myself the scenery still looks unchanged. What. The. Hell. I can see the grass being cut down!

I keep going, trying not to worry about whether or not the yard looks any different. ‘Just keep swimming,’ I tell myself, ‘like on Finding Nemo, only you’re not swimming, you’re stalking grass and making dust clouds like a strange ninja.’

I continue on, trying to get a better feel for this task normally appointed to teenage boys, and at one point I hear a sputter followed by silence. My long ass machine is dead. The Hell? I try to start it back up when I hear a voice from next door.

“Are you out of mix?”

I turn to see the boy next door hanging out of his window.

“HUH?” Sorry, I’m preoccupied with failing as an adult. Could you repeat that?

“Are you out of mix?” he asks again.

"I don’t even know what that is!" There are so many mixes in this world, he could be talking about anything. Cake mix? Brownie mix? Is he wanting to borrow a box of mix so his mom can make a nice dessert? I could spare a box of mix.

"It’s fuel. Hang on, I’ll be over in a minute." He disappears from his window for a few minutes and is on his way.

Since when has fuel been called mix? I’ve heard it called gas, gasoline, and juice, but never mix.

He opens the little plastic tank on the side of the motor and peeks in, announcing that I am indeed out of ‘mix’. he says he might have more in his basement and goes to check. I didn’t even have to ask, he just offered, how nice. If he ever does need a dessert mix I’ll make sure and give him a box. He returns empty handed and says there is none in his basement, just the usual survival kits and prisoners (I’m joking). I thiank him anyway and go tell my fiance what’s going on.

"Oh, you ran out of mix."

The look on my face must have told him he sounded batshit crazy to me because he promptly explained that you have to mix gasoline with weedeater engine oil because straight gasoline is really hard on a motor and will wreck its shit. It’s called 2Stroke easy mix or something to that effect. Well, there ya go.

I asked if it’s normal to use a whole tank of gas in a weedeater to do half of a small yard, and I get a no and a chuckle. So I should have been able to get it all dowe with what I had and in way less time than it was taking me. Well Hell.

He surely saw the look on my face and gave me a pat on the back, telling me that it took him a really long time and a lot of gas to finish yards when he first started cutting grass.

'When you first stared cutting grass ten years ago!’  I finished in my head, but didn’t say out loud because I didn’t want to start a fight when he was being genuinely thoughtful. So instead I smile and lean into him.

He goes down to his grandparents’ house to see if they have more, and comes back empty handed just like the boy next door. He says we’ll go out tomorrow and get more gasoline and mix. 

I have no problems with this because as soon as I sit down I realize how tired and drained I feel. Like all of my energy and motivation and even my will to live have been zapped. I feel like a literal human shell. I am beyond ready for bed, but I’m also pretty damn hungry. I bet this is what it feels like to be a zombie.

Damn, I still have to fix dinner. I start to tell them I’m going to take the night off from cooking when I look over my shoulder and see my housemate taking the lid off of the slow cooker and stirring the contents. He tells us that dinner is ready and I almost cry from happiness and relief. At this moment that is the greatest news anyone could tell me. 

We ladle out our helpings of dinner and it’s amazing. Holy glory hallelujah, it’s amazing. Why don’t people cook in these more often? Like, get two slow cookers and alternate days with them, cooking with them almost every day. I guess you would get tired of it, but at this point in time it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever consumed and it took no effort, so it’s basically a gift from Heaven. The gods and goddesses of lore surely had these in their kingdoms, Asgard, Mount Olympus, The Underworld, etc., and blessed mankind with the knowledge to construct and use them. 

After dinner I dragged myself upstairs to the shower. I was so drained and tired I didn’t want to shower. The very idea sounded awful, even though I was covered in grime and sweat and grass. But I made myself stand under the water and soap up anyway. To my dismay, it perked me up a little, so when I finally did go to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep for several hours. Another reason I hate showers so much. But I hate baths more. I don’t feel clean if I’m sitting in my own dirty water. I know the soap keeps the dirt from getting back on your skin but it FEEELS gross, lol. Showering is obviously the lesser of two evils so I go with that one as often as I can.

The next morning came and Oh Heavens I hurt all over. All. Over. Places I didn’t think would hurt at all. I literally had to crawl out of bed and force myself into a standing position. I felt like a port start that had been way overbooked on her first day of work. Like I had walked into my porn agent’s office and he greeted me with:

"Hey, hey, it’s Foxy Roxy Loves the Coxy! Excited for your first day? Good, so are we! Afraid I have some unexpected news. We may have booked you to shoot five or more videos today. I know, I know, sounds like a lot, but you’ll do just fine. I was able to pull some strings and you can shoot with Shane Diesel last. Yeah, you’re welcome. Oh, don’t give me that look, you get your coochie out there and make some sexy movies! Yeah. You’ll do great!"

Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to finishing cutting the grass. But I wasn’t going to back out. My fiance and I went to the store to buy some mix and a gas can and a few other things, and upon coming home we realized we had forgotten something. The damn gas. How the Hell am I gonna weedeat without any gas at all? I tell him and he says we’ll go tomorrow. And tomorrow. And tomorrow.

Basically, tomorrow didn’t come for over a week. I didn’t really care, though. After that first morning after I wasn’t looking forward to it a second time. When the morning finally came to cut the grass again my fiance said he’d do it if I washed the dishes. He had let them go for two days or so and didn’t wanna tackle the mountain. I thought about it for a second, asked if he was sure his knees would be okay, and took him up on the offer. Do you blame me?

All in all, my first time cutting the grass was a complete disaster, but I was able to learn the basics. All I need now is practice. Oh joy.

-Tome Raider