A whole different lawn mower experience

For those of you new to my blog, lawn mowers have been a topic of discussion before. I talk about them in my favorite post of all time, and probably in a few other spots. But I've never had an eperience like this:
I stopped to take advantage of Free Mocha Monday at McDonald's. As I pulled out of the drive through, I had to go up a slight hill to turn onto Main Street. There is an older Ford Ranger in front of me at the stop light, waiting to turn right also.
The owner of the truck wasn't in it, he was behind it. In and of itself, that isn't so strange. He is carrying an ancient riding lawn mower in the back of the truck and seems to be trying to secure it better.

Who hasn't been in that situation? Things shift, and what seemed secure when you left the house is not secure at all as you are driving down the road. Fair enough.

Not this time. The light turns green and the truck in front of me begins to lurch. I mean lurch. Like when you are trying to get a stick shift going for the very first time.

Lurch. Stop. Lurch. Stop. Lurch. Stop.

From my vantage point I can see the ancient lawn mower rocking back and forth. The tailgate is down on the truck and each time the truck lurches, the mower races to the end of the tailgate. Then the truck stops and the mower slams into the cab of the truck.
All 5 children start commenting on the precariousness of the situation and pondering (out loud, of course) if we are going to get hit. I watch as the mower races, slams, races, slams, races, slams.

Finally this...not brain surgeon.....guns it. A split second before he guns it, I glance in my mirror and throw my van in reverse. ***SLAM*** the mower crashes out of the back of the pickup. It gets high centered on the tailgate. The camper topper ~that I had not even noticed before it moved~ falls with it and is now sitting askew as if the pickup is tipping its rusty little top hat at me.

The man jumps out of his truck. Apparently it is a stick, because he forgot to leave it in gear and it starts to roll back toward me. I now have a rather large truck coming up behind me, so I flip on my hazards and scoot back(if a minivan CAN scoot). The man jumps back into the truck, puts on the parking brake and jumps back out.

So, I tell the children to stay put and jump out to assist this poor guy. I grab the askew camper topper and wrestle it into the approximate position that it should be so that he can heave the lawnmower back into the truck. Which he can't. The thing is monstrous. It fills the bed of the truck and probably weighs half again as much as a newer mower. All the while this poor man is TRYING to get things back together, his eyes are darting around like a junkie and he is just jabbering away. "Oh thank you ma'am, thank you. Thank you for your help. Oh, you're doing just great. Thank you so much. You didn't have to help. Thank you. You're such a lady. You're such a fine example of a lady."


(at this point I want to draw you a visual. I had an appointment that I had been in town for. I always wear skirts, and I was dressed up. I was wearing jewelery, my hair was fixed nicely and I looked pretty good, if I do say so myself. Now, how lady-like was it exactly to be holding a camper shell (with a tire on top of it to "hold it in place")in an intersection on Main street?)

Finally another man comes up and helps the poor man to get the lawnmower into the truck. I glance up and see that there is now an excellent back up of lunch hour traffic. Great. Fabulous. Wonderful. Together the three of us finally get the lawnmower and camper shell in place. The lawnmower man gets a small (engine part?) metal something to block the tires with and proceeds to jump into his truck like his life depended on getting out of that intersection.

I walked to my van slightly thankful that I could be of help, but also disgusted that this man was not going to do anything different. He was still going to travel down the road being a danger to others. I looked up at the truck that was directly behind/beside my van. I made eye contact with the driver. The look on his face was disgust also. I burst out laughing at that point and started a chain reaction. Instead of a bunch of angry people sitting in 104* temps, at lunch hour, stuck in traffic behind ...not the brightest star in the sky..., everyone left with a smile on their faces and a story to tell their coworkers. Possibly all because I choose laughter instead of disgust.

I got back in the van and started to pull forward. Guess what I see in my rear view mirror? Yep, a cop car with lights on. COME ON! This good Samaritan thing is not for me if I'm gonna get a ticket for holding up traffic. I started to creep forward into the intersection. I'm praying all the time that she is looking for the pickup. As we come up to the other turn off for McDonald's we see the man slowly making his way into the parking lot. As we pass the driveway, the cop turns in there too. The breath that I was unconsciously holding finally escapes from my body and my heart slowly gets back to a normal rhythm.

The children and I laughed all the way home.