I believe I can mow anything

If I had known the experience would be so perfectly enlightening, I would’ve driven my new-to-me riding lawn mower sooner, but you never really can tell when your spirit will be lifted to the light by a piece of machinery, now can you.

Two months the mower sat in our shop, waiting for me, taking the occasional excursion with my husband, beating him up for being a left-handed man on a right-handed machine — compromise physically impossible for either of them.

Then it came to be this week, with a quick tutorial on the many levers, the one pedal and a confusion of safety features, that I was sent into the green, green world on my green-eating machine.

Not as adept as my weed eater, or my DR trimmer mower before that, at getting into nooks and crannies or fussy cutting through a patch of the weeds to leave only the good plants to go to seed, I stuck with it to learn the machine’s nature, its good qualities. It’s hardiness.

On and on I drove, laying to waste vast patches of weeds in need of dying, and of grasses in need of trimming to keep snakes and skeeters at bay.

On and on I drove, measuring acres of felled green stuff not in hours and days of walking and wrestling a trimmer along through vegetation, but in minutes of sitting.

It scaled one of our steepest roads, until stopped by the kelly hump bermed across our path, then it mowed in reverse back down. It chopped through sagebrush. It stayed upright on the sidehills. It rode like a buckboard through the ruts, but it has a spin-on-a-dime turning radius and almost mows back onto itself.

It was awesome, and on and on I drove ... until I got high-centered on a boulder hidden in the grass.

But no problem.

I hit the blade's kill-switch to save the rock from more abuse, applied more power to the hydrostasis drive and lumped the machine forward. Free of encumbrance, I dropped the spinning blades again and on and on I mowed with my machine intended for rolling, groomed lawns through my rough and rocky pasture.

It was exhilarating. I believed I could fly. I believed I could mow anything.

And then I had my epiphany.

Though I love, or really like, or not-unhappily tolerate those people I work with and my current job, in that very moment I realized that I would quit my job and ditch my co-workers in a heartbeat for employment with this job description:

Successful applicant will test machinery for tolerance levels of materials and components in conditions of usage deemed inappropriate by manufacturer’s recommendations.

Successful applicant must have little prior knowledge of, or natural aptitude for, mechanics or engineering, and if any is developed during the course of their employment, applicant is obligated NOT to develop empathy for the machines and tools.

Possible to work from home if suitable hazards and rustic working conditions exist.

• A current, valid driver’s license is acceptable, but applicant will be disqualified if a background check finds any special training, licenses, certifications and/or educational degrees existing for vehicle, machinery or tool operation; materials testing or fabrication; machinery or tool design or construction; or any related fields.

• Attach copies of any documented motor vehicle accidents, speeding tickets and/or homeowners insurance claims, along with personal medical history (or photos of scars from wounds not tended to by medical personnel), that prove a lack of concern for personal well-being and that of any hard objects.

• Must prove prior history of inappropriate use of tools.

(No one else need apply once I submit my awesome application at [email protected].)