You know what’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Pain in my heart.
It’s Spring Time in Tennessee.
Winter has lost its icy grip on our lives.
The sun warms the sky like a morning kiss.
Gray has given way to a palette of colors and emerging life.
Dull has acquiesced to the brilliant yellow of a daffodil’s smile.
This also means the trees are in full bloom and allergens are surfing the air like irritating beach boys hanging ten in a petri dish.
I love spring, but my sinuses would beg to differ. Last time I checked, pollen free oxygen was still a good thing.
My eyes hate spring. They itch like a marriage after 7 years. I am tempted to either rip them out of my skull or itch them with a spatula.
As the air warms, the critters and creepy crawlers come out of the crevices and the dark places they spawn from.
And all the while the grass begins to live, to breathe, to turn a zesty green and grow.
Yes it is that time of year again, when the lawnmower becomes a part of life.
VROOOM.
That sound is firing up all over my neighborhood. The roar in the distance that says its ok to be outside and take pride in your yard.
I have a riding mower. It’s a 42 inch Troy Built. It blows through my little postage stamp lawn in 15 minutes.
It’s a Sherman tank compared to a push mower.
While my neighbors are toiling, pushing their antiquated plow horse like mower down a line of grass, pivoting and toiling back in the opposite direction, I am riding on the wind.
I get on my Troy Built and power across the grass.
Compared to my neighbor, my lawn care is Operation Desert Storm.
That’s because my riding mower was purchased for a piece of property 4 times bigger than the one I’m cutting now. I could use a stone age model mower like my neighbors, but why? I have a mechanized pony that’s aching to run, demanding to be ridden like a wild stallion.
And like any finely tuned lawn machine it needs to be serviced, lubed, prepped for the season.
So I call the lawn man. I’ve used him before. He charges $135.00 for a service call. I’m not sure it’s worth it. Maybe it is. No it’s probably not.
He sharpens the blade, he drains the oil, he puts on a new oil filter and gets the mower ready.
I wish I could tell you he did more, but he didn’t.
I guess I’m paying for the damn convenience of the little dude coming to my house.
“It’ll add 10 years to your machine”, he tells me.
OK. Lie to me. Whatever, lawn boy.
After 35 minutes, I go outside and hand the lawn man a check.
He shows me his work. The deck is clean, the oil filter is brand new.
The candy apple red unit is so clean I feel like starting it up mutilating some grass.
Then the lawn mower man surprises me, actually pisses me off.
He asks me to step into my own garage.
“Andy I want to talk to you,” he says as he backs into the shade.
“Huh?”
What the hell is this guy doing I say moving forward.
Once inside he grabs me.
His old man hands are like two serpents striking forward, wrapping around my hands.
“I want to pray with you,” he says.
There is a sense of urgency in his eyes. They are blue, but behind each pupil I see a bonfire of burning souls.
I feel awkward, surprised, anxious.
I know I don’t like his hands on me. I know I don’t like him touching me. I know I don’t like him invading my space in my garage telling me that he needs to pray with me.
This is weird. My lawn mower man is touching me suddenly demanding to save my soul. The little man with the greasy hat and coo coo eyes wants to absolve me of sin?
Is this how you do it? You assault me?
He could have asked, right? “Sir I’d like to pray with you or for you. May I do that?”
I still would have said NO.
But that’s at least socially acceptable. Maybe?
But to grab me like a Columbian body snatch?
That’s bad business sir.
I jerk my hand away quickly.
He is shocked, almost confused.
“You don’t need to do that,” I say boldly, firmly.
I’m not happy, my voice is elevated.
I just put way too much money in your collection plate old-timer, and now you are going to talk to me in tongues.
Not on my watch – lug nut.
“I don’t like that,” I say, my eyes berating him like a dog who crapped on my rug. “I didn’t bring you hear to pray for me or with me. I brought you hear to fix my lawnmower. It’s a business arrangement. You know what I mean?”
“Well I see so much pain in you and Jesus wants me to pray for you,” he says.
I look at the beautiful sky. I don’t see any sign of Jesus.
“No he doesn’t,” I quickly counter. “You know what Jesus wants? He wants you to fix my lawnmower and not judge me or push your perceived values on me based on 5 minutes of talking to me.”
The offended lawnmower man turned front lawn Jesus Jockey will tell me that he is a preacher when he’s not slathering grease on a chassis.
“Jesus told me you were in pain,” he says. “I can feel it.”
Oh My God. I want to punch this guy in his proselytizing face.
I get up in his business. “Hey lawnmower man. You don’t know me. I think Jesus is lying to you. Because me and the universal creator are cool. We are very very cool. In fact, I’m the most positive guy you will ever meet. And I’m positive I don’t like you trying to tell me what’s wrong with me and how you’re gonna fix it. So if Jesus is telling you that I’m anything but happy, then Jesus is giving you some bad intel.”
His eyes are glassy and he seems upset that I won’t let him lay hands on me and fix my soul.
“You know what needs fixing?,” I say, not letting him go. “That price you charge. $135.00? Did Jesus tell you to cure the pain in my heart or rob me blind?”
“I’m going to make almost a hundred thousand dollars this year.”
I stare at him. Where the hell did that come from? Who even cares, I’m thinking.
“From fixing lawnmowers?” I ask.
That’s when the lawnmower man tells me he is also a preacher and works for the state in its environmental division.
Environmental?
Just a moment earlier he told me there was old gas in the mower tank.
“I’m not telling you to dump it, but you need to dump it”, he told me.
Really?
Dump my gas? Where in the river? in the sewer?
Is that part of Jesus’ plan for the Earth?
You know where the golf course is?” he asks. “I live there.”
I’m like, who gives a damn lawnmower man.
Go proselytize the pukes in your own neighborhood, I want to say, as I imagine escorting him to his little truck by the scruff of his little neck.
Don’t come here and con me out of my hard-earned money and then lay hands on me like this is some kind of exorcism gone bad, I feel like saying.
Homey don’t play that.
“Look man. I contracted you to fix my lawnmower. You did that. I don’t need you to tell me what your religious beliefs are and how they might make me a better man, a happier man, with a less pained heart.”‘
I figure we’ve set the record straight. He is moving away like the hurt little preaching lawnmower perp he is.
“Hey. No hard feelings. I call you next season. Good luck.”
I extend my hand. I want to shake it like a man.
You know what the little greasy lawn mower preacher man does?
He grabs my hand with both of his hands. AGAIN!
Like a damned drive by shooting of religious spacial invasion, he tries to inject the spirit of the Holy Ghost into my being, AGAIN.
“I’m going to pray for you,” He says as if I am Linda Blair and my head is spinning around spitting up green custard.
It’s not like I’m screaming “Your mother sucks C*** in hell.”
No I am not saying that, though I wish I had.
Now that would have melted his crescent wrench.
“Hey look man. You want to pray for me, then get in your truck and pray for me. But I’m not a UNICEF mission in Africa where you can parachute in some gruel and think I’m gonna drink your Kool Aid. I don’t need you to pray for me, I don’t want you to pray for me. In fact I’m cooler with my creator than you are with yours. I talk to mine every day. I’m talking to mine right now.”
I stop talking and pull my hand back ready to club this little man like a baby seal.
My brain is firing on all cylinders. I want to say my creator just told me to kick your ass. But I won’t do that. You know why because my creator is a man of creative peaceful coexistence. My creator is telling me lawn mower man is a crazy son of a bitch.
My mouth engages again. “So look brother. While you are out there praying and driving for me, don’t run over any school kids, Ok? Keep your attention on the road.”
I turn my back, push my mower into my garage and shut the door.
The mechanism grinds the gears and the massive door churns in its track. I watch as darkness envelopes me and suddenly the little lawn mower preacher is gone.
I am angry at the little lawnmower man, as I enter my kitchen.
You want to save the world old timer? Charge $75 dollars. Instead he tried to rape my check book and baptize me without my permission.
A drive by baptism, that’s what this was.
Last time I checked that only happens when your soul lets its guard down.
Doesn’t this little man know: Church and Turf don’t mix.
Now if I could just find a spatula to itch my damn eyes.
Life’s Crazy™