Just Drop the Deck - a poem about lawnmower repairs (caution - strong asterisk usage)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Just Drop the Deck

When the lawnmower goes CLUNK – and it often
     does –
I burrow into the InterGossip to find
One of those fixit videos by some fellow
Named Darryl or Wayne or Red or Mitch who
     spends
The first five minutes on exposition:

“Like, you know, this is my garage, like, you know, and this is my mower, and there’s the kids’ bicycles, you know, and I was mowing the yard, you know, you can see where I stopped (shaky video shift), ha ha, when the machine went CLUNK, you know, and, well, here it is, you know, as you can see it’s a classic Snarkwell-Guppy, like, you know, and they sure don’t build ‘em like this anymore, like, you know, so today I’m going to show you how to diagnose the CLUNK, like, you know, so first you take your wire cutters, you know, because they cut wires, you know, and you cut all these wires here, you know, like and you take your tester, you know, and, like, oh, I need to change the 9-volt battery, like, you know, okay, so we know the CLUNK is from the PTO, so now you just drop the
     deck…”

Why do ALL lawnmower repairs begin
With “…just drop the deck?” Yeah, an
     hour of heat
And sweat and barking your knuckles
With three sizes of wrenches and searching
For that last little nut hidden in some
Inaccessible place and then the
Heavy-*** deck falls on your hand and you
Yell the sort of thing that got your mouth washed
     out
With soap by Mom when you were little

But I no longer drop the ***-**** deck
I take that ***-****ed mower to the shop

My mower is about two inches too wide
For the pickup truck, so I borrow my brother
And a trailer and we heave that ***-**-*-*****
Mower onto it and haul it away

Uh, oh…is that tire flat…? ***-**-*-*****!

Then we take the mower to the good ol’ shop
That has changed hands ‘cause Old Bubba retired,
And they promise the mower in twelve days
And they don’t call and they don’t answer the
     ‘phone
And when you finally go in to check on it
The girls their sweet time looking up
From their take-out burgers and fries and shakes,
And then look at you as if you have interrupted
Their leisurely day of eating, snickering
And making personal ‘phone calls. Then one goes
To the back while the other keeps giggling
And spraying food on her ‘phone,
And the other one returns to say
They lost a mechanic and they’re sorry
They’ll get right on it tomorrow, yessir,
Which means another two weeks at the least

I got the mower home yesterday
And after a half-hour it laid down and died

Thus endeth the lesson