Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Lawnmowers and Bacon Cookers

Our lawnmower is on the fritz.  My already overcommitted husband has spent hours taking it apart, fixing, adjusting, and reassembling, but it's still not working.  Meanwhile, our yard is reaching new heights.  Literally. 

Last night, Karl knocked on the door of a house in our neighborhood where there is always a crowd of lawnmowers in the driveway.  We didn't know who lived in the house, but we were hoping he or she might be able to fix our mower.  A 92-year-old man answered the door.  Not only is he looking at our mower, but...
  • He worked side-by-side for years with Karl's great uncle as an engineer at Oscar Mayer
  • He bought my mother-in-law's microwave bacon cooker at our yard sale a couple of years ago
As an added bonus (as if there needs to be one), I called Karl about half an hour after he had left the house.  He told he that he was at Maurice's.  Of course, I thought he meant the dreadful clothing store best known for its floral dresses and tapered jeans.  I was a teensy bit annoyed-- I thought he was going to ask about getting our mower fixed, and instead, he was hanging out at the mall, looking for a fake pearl barrette?  But don't worry.  The lawn mower guy's name is Maurice. 

The Oscar Mayer/microwave bacon cooker/Maurice's combination had me smiling all evening long. 

2 comments:

TK said...

our mower was on the fritz too and greg worked on it forever. in the end we bought a new one since it was pretty old. my dad took the old one thinking he might like to tinker with it and it was a blown head gasket!!! no wonder it sounded like it exploded when it backfired on me!

Laura said...

So much fun! That was very smart of you to ask the handy neighbor - old guys know everything. I sometimes wonder about all the city people in our generation - who will fix our things when the old guys are gone? As for Maurices - go back, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.