Swimming on top, for a change...

Many months of bottom feeding now are history.  I have risen, sort of, back to the sunlight, and now am thrashing about on the surface.  Let me tell you the story of me and lawnmowers.  I bought my roommate's machine when she moved to an apartment, where they mow the lawns for her.  It was a Sears, balky but serviceable.  Then, it got to be hard to start.  Then the starter cord stretched out so badly, it was impossible to start.  To get it fixed would cost as much as a new one.  So I bought a new one.  At Sears.  And, like the old one, I just pushed it in the garage when mowing season was over.  And, this year, guess what, it would not start.  I had my mechanical neighbor over to get his opinion.  Finally, I enlisted a friend to help me get it to the lawnmower repair shop.  Where it still is, a month later.  After attempt to contact them, they "thought" it needed a new carburator, which I told them don't do until I know how much that costs.  Not another word from the mysterious folks over there in Toro land.  So I bought a new one. Again.  A Toro.  An   ELECTRIC one.  It came today.  The UPS man set the box on its end on the porch.  Happy to say the machine came out of the box just fine.  Upside down.  On my foot.  We wrestled for a while, the box, the lawnmower and I.  It finally got right side up, and it was deceptively easy to assemble.  Currently, it is charging, which the manual said would take 16 hours, but the charger thinks only took 5.  I'm going to let it simmer all night before I try to start it up and mow down the yard of shame.  We are all happy here, me, the Toro, and my blue foot.