My Shiny Red Mower

A couple of weeks ago I was cutting the grass in my back yard when I heard a loud " CLANK."
The mower stopped running and a puff of smoke blew out of the exhaust.

I had hit a piece of angle iron that was sticking up about 2 inches, the people who used to live here had a garden and had some kind of chicken-wire fence around it. I normally use a weed eater in that area because it is kind of narrow for a push mower, but my weed eater bit the dust.

I tried to pull the cord to re-start the mower but it wouldn't budge. I flipped the mower on its side and saw that the shaft was bent and the blade was pushed up against the bottom of the mower. I had to buy a new mower at Home Depot.

I pushed the old mower down to the curb, didn't expect the trash man to take it but I thought someone that works with mowers would take it for parts, or a scrap metal rat would scoop it up. It sat down there for 3 days and I got tired of looking at it. I decided to make it more presentable.

I pushed it back in the garage on a bright sunny Sunday morning and cleaned it up with a gasoline soaked rag. Then I spotted a bottle of Turtle Wax on a shelf in my garage that only had a few drops left in it. I used it to wax up the mower and then put the grass catcher back on and wheeled it into the center of my front yard. The sun was shining on it and it looked almost like a brand new mower.

I kept peeking out the blinds to see if it was still there. Sometime around 10 o'clock that night I was sitting in the recliner watching the news and I heard a loud "BANG," and looked out just in time to see two guys climbing back into their truck and speed away with their lights off. I could see my lawn mower handle sticking up out of their truck bed.

I was glad to see it gone, but worried they would return and throw it back in my yard after they found out it was just a hunk of junk.

So far they haven't.