When I was a boy and as I grew up in my formative work ethic years of 10-16 years of age, one of the chores I had to do the most was mowing the lawn. It started with our own lawn. My dad one day just showed me how to use the electric mower, edge, trim and not run over the cord. Clippings would go over here and the mower would get put away over there and so on. It became my weekly chore and I earned something on the order of $2. I think towards the end of my lawn career at 17 years old I was making $5.

I also learned that other people would pay more than my dad. At the height of my lawnmowing career my kingdom peaked at 7 lawns — not including ours. At $7 per lawn when you are 13 years old that’s quite a business to run and pretty damn cool. It buys lots of baseball cards, anodized bike parts and candy. Too bad I was just a normal kid and bought that kind of crap instead of investing in little heard of companies like Apple Computer, Microsoft and Amgen. I was destined to continue working.

Now fast forward to today. As you all know, my back is still recuperating. As you all also know, my folks are in town staying with us. And as you all know (from here), in April I picked up a pretty cool zero turn mower. Combine all those and you get a kid’s ultimate revenge — your dad mowing your lawn!

I got such a kick out of watching Dad zip down the driveway, along the treeline, up the neighbor’s easement, around the back creek and up again. He picked up really quick and was soon haulin’ a$$. I turned to my wife and said “Look how fast he’s goin’. He’s bookin’!”. She replied by saying “That’s how you look”. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. He ended up enjoying mowing the lawn as much as I do. Which is easy to do if you have the right mower.

After my dad was finished and pulled the mower onto the driveway and got off, I pulled out my wallet and gave him 5 bucks. It was the best 5 bucks I’ve ever spent. 🙂

And it turns out he needed it. When careening in the front yard where it’s really bumpy, it seems that he didn’t have his cellphone on his hip anymore. We had lots of ground to cover to try and find it. We tried to call it, hoping the ring would lead us to it. But that didn’t work. Luckily, it didn’t take long for us to find the shredded leather case. And then the flip part ear piece. And then I saw the LCD display reflecting the afternoon sun. Oh, and here’s a circuit board here. Hey, the main part of the phone with the keypad is still intact. And the battery light is on. We were busting up laughing so hard. I tried to call it hoping it would grumble out a pathetic ring which would’ve put me on the ground in laughter. But it just sat there.

Piece by piece we found the phone in between laughing fits. My dad pretty much mulched his cellphone in his careening down the yard on the mower. We’ll be headed to the Verizon store tomorrow with the ziploc bag full of remaining parts.

I wonder if anyone has ever mowed their phone.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net