My Nemesis

For the most part, the outdoor maintenance around the House of Crackers falls on the very capable shoulders of Mr. Crackers. He's a down in the dirt, get your hands dirty type of guy. He's the one who maintains the lawn, does most of the planting in the garden as well as initiating any large outdoor projects that need accomplished.

Since I am at home a lot more than Mr. Crackers, I do more of the smaller detail work in the yard like weeding, hedge trimming and occasionally trimming the grass along the picket fence that lines our backyard. Since Mr. Crackers does a lot of the mowing (especially in the Spring) during weeknight evenings, we just never really seem to get the trimming done right away. But after a couple of weeks the grass grows so long that I start fearing we may lose the dog or maybe even one of the children along the fence line, so I decide to try & get the trimming done while Mr. Crackers is at work.

And in almost all cases over the past 6 years, I have failed to get the yard trimmed completely on my own....why? Yard Trimmers are my Nemesis. They are my kryptonite. Something happens when a yard trimmer gets placed in my hands that causes the trimmer to stop working. Completely.

We are currently on our 3rd trimmer in 6 years. The first two were corded electric models that were really inexpensive & I would like to think would have broken down as quickly for anyone. The cords inside the trimmers would either stop feeding correctly, or the top of the cord dispenser would continually pop off or some other plastic part would just plain give out. Mr. Crackers would come to my aid once the weekend hit, but (thankfully) would have just as many issues as I did getting the thing to work for more than 5 minutes in a row. Needless to say, trimming has become one of my most hated chores (second only to ironing).

Finally last year after our second electric trimmer failed we decided to get serious and get one of those incredibly loud, gas powered models.



Since we got it about halfway through the summer last year, Mr. Crackers had fun playing with his new toy & usually did the trimming right after he mowed. Not only did it work well for him, but it trimmed the yard in about half the time as our old electric trimmers. By mid-summer the grass wasn't really growing really quickly anymore, so Mr. Crackers could trim about every 2 weeks & everything still looked good.

But, it's Spring again. And the grass is growing so quickly that Mr. Crackers is pulling out the lawn mower every 5 days or so. And yet, the grass along the fence hasn't been trimmed once yet. I would venture a guess that it was at least 6 inches longer than the grass in the rest of the lawn.

So, last night I asked Mr. Cracker to refresh my memory & teach me how to start the electric trimmer. It took him a few minutes (since it hadn't been used in a few months), but he finally got it started. He then taught me how to do it & I decided I'd get out this afternoon & get it done before we lost the dog or one of the kids in the tall grass.

Ha!

Darn Trimmer! I tried to start that thing until both of my shoulders were sore. But could I get it to start? Nope! I finally walked away in case I flooded the engine (can you flood the engine of a trimmer?). After about 20 minutes I came back & tried it again. And once again that flipping trimmer wouldn't start.

I decided to try some tough love and began cursing a blue streak (quietly so as not to disturb my napping pre-schooler or the other neighborhood children) every time I pulled on the cord and it wouldn't start. Even though I felt a little better for venting, the cursing didn't really help get it started either.

I was getting to be seriously disappointed by yet another lawn trimmer (now that's a phrase I never in a million years thought I would say). I was ready to throw the thing into the street when it finally sputtered & coughed to life.

Hooray! I set to work & began trimming along the fence. Boy does that thing vibrate. Even though it was getting a bit heavy I kept soldiering on determined to for the first time in 6 years get the entire lawn trimmed without the aid of Mr. Crackers. I was feeling a real sense of accomplishment as I trimmed along the final stretch of fencing. I mean, just wait until Mr. Crackers sees that I was finally able to do it. Wahoo!

Then, all of the sudden the trimmer seemed to slow down a bit, then it gave a cough and stopped completely. What the what?! Holy cow did I manage to break yet another trimmer?!

Nope. It was just out of gas. And of course it is one of those engines that need an oil & gas mixture. Something that seems entirely too risky for me to attempt to do with my past trimmer history. I decided it would be best to wait for Mr. Crackers and make sure I do it right. I really don't want another lawn trimmer death on my conscience. Darn it, I was so close. Oh well, at least I didn't break this one.

I guess I better go finish the ironing.