Monday confessional: the riding mower

Once upon a time, last Tuesday to be exact, I decided to do something totally out of the norm, and surprise my husband by mowing our property while he was at work.

Now, this doesn't sound like a big deal, but let me lay out a few facts first:

1. Our lawn is the size of Kansas. Roughly.
2. It hadn't been mown in a month because of a damaged tire on our riding mower and Russ being crazy busy with summer league and play structures, so it was basically a hay field. A hay field the size of Kansas.
3. we had finally bought a new tire ($70 freakin' bucks!) and arranged for our high-school-aged nephew to come mow for us (because Russ's summer league never ever ends), but because of the length of the hay grass, our nephew was going to have to mow twice, going really slow the first time and bagging it the second time, so we knew it would probably take him two days and cost us a pretty penny.

Which all led to my very magnanimous decision to spend a day doing the first mowing, saving us some money and our nephew a day of labor. (And hopefully garnering love and adoration from my soon-to-be-thrilled husband.)

I started bright and early and things went well the first couple of hours.

Then this happened:

So I accidentally broke our gutter drain pipe... a small price to pay for a day of free labor, in my opinion. I honestly didn't even feel that bad. I just kept on mowing. And mowing and mowing, and mowing and mowing some more. Until it looked like this...

Which I am sad to announce was about half way done. At this point I ran out of gas and could have just called it a day (because it had literally been a day). But no, wanting to power on and impress my husband to no end, I found an empty gas can and drove to the gas station to fill it, rushing to get back before Russ arrived home from work.

The real trouble started when I came back and tried to locate the gas tank. You'd think it wouldn't be that difficult. But the heck if I could find it! Finally I lifted the whole top up, found one single cap that could be removed, and pulled out the stick inside - which looked dubiously like an oil stick but clearly stated "FUEL" right on it.
Okay then! In went the handy funnel I found in the shop, followed by the gasoline... until blue fumes started to rise out and I was immediately filled with doubt and regret.

So I took this picture and sent it to my husband with the caption: "Is this NOT where the gas goes in the mower?"

And 1.2 seconds later my phone rang.

Russ: "please tell me you didn't just put gas in there!"
Me: guilty pause
Russ: "PLEEAASE tell me you didn't just put gas in there!"
Me: "I miiiight have put just a little bit in."

SURPRISE, HONEY!

Turns out the gas tank lid is hidden under the seat, which lifts up (pure trickery). That would be the oil tank I just poured gas into, and when Russ wiped the oil stick I could clearly see that it read "FULL", not fuel. And I now know how to drain the oil from our mower, in case you are interested, because that's what I watched Russ do next, who, by the way, was extremely gracious and forgiving and even went so far as to say it was helpful that this happened because he needed to change the oil anyway.

(INSERT HUSBAND AWARD HERE.)

This was of course after he shook his head in disbelief at my idiocy.

Not my proudest moment.

But guess who still got credit for mowing in the first place? And was praised and admired for her fine work and hours of sacrifice, not just by her husband but by her grateful nephew who came the next day to finish?

Mission accomplished :)