Arse in the Hole

You know those days when you're just on? You start to do something, and miraculously everything goes right? Those are the types of days when athletes win their competitions, or that artists paint their masterpieces. And when I started out push-mowing my yard yesterday, I was having that type of day.

How can you have an "on" day with a mower, you ask? Well, it's simple. I have a huge yard with a lot of crap to mow around. Trees, flower beds, a mailbox, a fire hydrant, a rose bush, a lilac bush (which was once one of three, but I blindly mowed over the other two when they were small. Oops). Anyway, there are some days when it seems I get the lawnmower caught up on everything it passes. I've snagged the side of the house, nicked the edge of the concrete, you name it. But yesterday? I was mowing, man. It was smooooooth sailing. My trusty John Deere (her name is Dolores) was moving through the grass like a hot knife through buttah.

And that was a good thing, because yesterday I had spectators. Two municipal employees were parked right by my house doing something with the city-owned property that borders ours, and they kept looking at me. I was silently thankful that I wasn't fumbling with the mower as I sometimes do, because I have this thing about people watching me mow. It's like someone watching me on the toilet: uncomfortable. I feel like they're scrutinizing my technique, mocking my obsessive need to mow in straight lines even if it means backtracking.* I think my biggest issue, though, is the thought that people will see me bump the curb or mow over a lilac and think my gender has something to do with it. Like if my husband were mowing, he'd never do such a thing. There seems to be this widely-held misconception that mowing is a "guy thing." I'd hardly call myself a raging feminist, but it really gets under my skin when people (coughcoughCurtiscoughcough) make smart remarks about "women drivers" or other related things. Know what I mean?

*I'm pretty sure most of this is in my head. But whatever.

Anyway, it didn't matter yesterday. My mower and I were like a champion dog and an experienced handler: weaving around obstacles like there was nothing there. I could have mowed circles around any chump with a challenge. In my head, I started to get cocky. Yeah, look at me, I inwardly chided the city workers. I can mow like nobody's bidness. Yeah. This is MY yard, suckas. I could mow it blindfolded. I congratulated myself as I bent down to hurtle a big stick out of my path without even slowing. Girls don't mow, huh? Well THIS girl does.

And that? Is when I FELL in a MOTHER-EFFING HOLE.

RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE WORKERS.

The same hole that's been in our yard for the three years that we've lived here. The same hole I've never fallen into before, the same hole that I have managed to sidestep every single time I've ever mowed this yard, which amounts to like 18,627 times by now. The same damn hole that I could - any other time - find with my eyes closed.

Yeah. Stepped right in it. Stumbled. Got the wheel of the mower hung up in it and had to thrust my weight against it a couple of times to get it out. Ugh. It was like my biggest mowing blunder ever, and it just had to take place when I had an audience.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so smug after all ...