What Frustration Looks Like

Today if you look up frustration in the dictionary you will see a photo of my Sears Craftsman self propelled walk-behind lawn mower.  Ooooooh, baby.  See the machine wouldn't start a couple weeks ago so I took it to Sears for service.  I picked it up on Saturday and paid for a tune up.  Today, being Sunday, I took it out to cut the grass and bag up the leaves. So how many pulls on a starter rope should a newly tuned up mower take?  One pull should do it. Three pulls is acceptable.  Five to seven pulls would be no reason to complain.  Ten pulls is too many.  Fifty-five pulls (who counted?  I did) is also too many freaking pulls on a starter cord.  Hence my sore right arm.  But that's not all.  After emptying two bags of mulched grass and leaves the left rear wheel fell off.  It fell off!  But did I give up?  No, I did not.  Hence sore left arm from holding up the left side of the mower.  Also the grass on the left side of the path is way shorter than the grass on the right side of the path.  Every time I empty the bag I have to turn off the mower.  Eventually it wouldn't start again.  Ugh!  I suppose it's not worth fixing and I'm in the market for a new mower.  If I had known the wheel was going to fall off, I never would have had it tuned up.  On the other hand, the end of the mowing season is a good time for the lawn mower to expire.  Most of the grass is cut at a slant.  I declare it good enough for this year.