Friday, July 23, 2004|
Killer Tiller Pick-axing crappy dirt is hard work. That’s part of the reason I like gardening. You can get a good sweat going and get the neighbors happy all at the same time. Three days of pick-axing and shoveling in 90 degree heat gets a little tiring, though. I took a break and turned on HGTV. Some fix-up-your-house-in-a-day show was on and there was a guy rototilling the front yard. He was doing what I was doing, only I was just started. What took me three days with a pick-ax and shovel took someone about ten minutes with a rototiller. I got kind of depressed thinking about how much work I’ve done by hand. Why didn’t I think of that? I can get a workout later, if that's the reason I'm determined to do things by hand.“Let’s go to Home Depot,” Charlie said. “They rent rototillers. Big ones.” Off we went. We don’t even need a good excuse to go to Home Depot. There’s always something there we overlooked that’s sure to make our lives easier.We went straight to the rental area and started playing with the cheapest rototiller. The sales clerk came up to us and said, “That one’s crap, if you want my opinion.” He lead us outside to the bigger rototillers. “People try to save money and rent the cheaper one,” he said. “They’re back a few hours later getting the bigger one. If you have any rocks, you’ll be back.” We decided to save the time and trouble and rent the bigger one. “Come during the week,” the clerk suggested. “People fight over them the minute we open on the weekends.” We told him, “See you in a couple of days.” Charlie decided to take off early the day of the big rental. He told one of his friends, “I’m leaving early. I’m renting a rototiller at Home Depot.” Much to his surprise, his friend said, “I have a rototiller.” Charlie said his jaw dropped. This particular friend is the biggest tight-ass he knows. What’s he doing letting go and buying something as frivolous as a rototiller? “Can I borrow it?” Charlie asked, being kind of a tight-ass himself. “Sure. Take it as long as you want.”Charlie then shared with everyone at work that this guy had a rototiller. They all were as surprised as Charlie. “I can’t believe it,” some people said. “No way. Him? Buy a rototiller?” Charlie drove over to the friend’s house right away to pick it up. As Charlie drove up, he thought, “This has got to be the cheapest rototiller ever made. You probably couldn’t move bark dust with it.”That’s how cheap this guy is. The friend showed Charlie his rototiller. It was so nice Charlie couldn’t believe his tight-ass friend would let go that much money. “This is yours?” Charlie said.“Nah. It’s a friend of mine’s. He needed a place to store it. He told me I could use it anytime I wanted. I hope he never comes back to get it.” Charlie thought, “Aha. I knew it. He is too cheap to own a rototiller.” He didn’t say anything, though. He thought he would only take so much crap before not letting Charlie borrow it. Charlie never used a rototiller before. Once he got it home, it took a while for him to figure it out. First, it took a while to start because it hadn’t been run in a year. He finally got it started after a lot of adjusting and tweaking the tines. This rototiller has two speeds, slow and fast. Because he was losing daylight, he naturally put it in fast gear to get it started. Once he did that, it ran away from him.He had the tines set too low, so it dug into the ground and ran off. He barely missed rototilling his Police car, which was parked on the other side of the curb. In the meantime, I had a very determined fifteen year-old daughter barking orders in my ear. She needed sugary, fatty food and she needed it now. I decided it would be easier for all concerned if she got as far away from any heavy machinery as possible. Sugar might even calm her down.When we returned from the sugar/fat run, Charlie had the halogen lights out in the yard and was covered with sweat and dirt.
“I’m getting a workout,” he said. “This is like cross-training.” I'm glad someone's getting a workout. I noticed he’d rototilled the whole front
part of the yard. The turned dirt looked
rich and pretty - almost good enough to eat, and a lot better than what was in the grocery bags in the
car.
Is it obsessive to start
gardening at almost midnight? I could
use a good work-out. |
Last update: 8/4/2004; 11:40:21 PM .
