A User’s Guide to Improvisational Lawnmower Repair, Part Two

Scene: a mad dash to mow the lawn before the rain and you have to wait another three days to mow the thing at which point it will probably have become a jungle and then you’ll have to hear all about that.

Step one: From your station atop the riding lawnmower, still in motion, somewhat, stare, with a bemused incredulousness, at the right front tire now fallen from the rim, all sad and squishy. Record in memory by saying, “Fuck, the fucking tire came off the rim.”

Step two: Dismount and confirm that, indeed, the tire has come off the rim. Repeat aforementioned memory recording.

Step three: One more confirmation. Yes, it’s all sad and squishy. Record.

Step four: Seek out a way to raise the mower off the ground. Find a chunk of chopped tree. Lift said mower onto tree chunk. Spin wheel with sad and squishy tire. Deflated. Record.

Step five: Remember method for getting tire back on rim from the time the tire came off the rim on the Little Wonder leaf blower. Recognize that the mower is, indeed, larger than the leaf blower but that the method should work. Recognize too that you do not have an air compressor – though your grandfather does but you refuse to call him to bring it up since you’re still hearing to “watch out for stumps” every time you go outside to mow (see part one) – but you do have a bicycle pump.

Step six: Spend the next hour and a half pumping said tire with said bicycle pump while being reminded of your intense loathing of businesspeople (many instances in which they “did a business,” as Vincent Adultman would say) as you listen to one and only one episode of the ZigZag podcast and marvel at said tire’s transition from sad and squishy to back on the rim. And inflated.

Step seven: Say a small atheistic / indifferent prayer that the inflated and attached tire will not deflate as soon as you remove the stump of wood.

Step eight: Rejoice, for the inflated and attached has remained so. Carry on with mowing. Watch out for stumps.