Chasing Kids With Lawnmowers

Last weekend the weather got a little warm and I went out and cleaned out one of the cars and opened up both garage doors just to let the air blow through. Spring is finally coming! Kicking around the garage I grabbed my lawnmower and pulled the cord on that 8‑year old thing to make sure it planned on working for me again this year.

It started easily, and so I knew that I would be able to undertake for the next 6-7 months the mowing that I hate (this is the one good thing about living in Cleveland; only mowing half the year). But I do it still. I mow. I mean, I'm 35. I can't start paying someone to mow my yard now, or I'm just going to get more and more pissed off over the years. I gotta do it myself, at least for the next decade or two.

And since I'm going to hate my "time in the yard," I figure it's only fair that those that share my genes share my pain, so last year I made sure to kick my kids off the computer or out of the TV room and sent them outside to play in the yard when I mow. After I started doing this, however, the kids complained about the mower noise and the grass clippings that showered them. So the normal pattern was that I would go mow the front yard while they played in back. Then we would switch. I would walk down the driveway to the back, they would stop what they were doing, scream in mock (I think) terror, and run down the driveway and play in front while I then mowed the back.

The mock terror was an open invitation to play that each week I declined. But one day it was just too good to pass up. That day, after the kids ran past yelling, I turned myself and the mower around and started running down the driveway after the kids. I soon realized they were getting away from me, going too fast. So I ratcheted up my speed and slowly started to gain on them. I wasn't going to let a 7-year old and 4-year old outrun me! And a roar started building from within me, it was barely audible over the roar of the mower, but my mouth was open wide and…

… y'know, sometimes it's a good thing to be married. Not always, but sometimes. Most of the time, almost all of the time, even. I'm not trying to set up my life as a sitcom marriage with the wacky dad and the common sensical mom (spending five minutes with my wife will dispel that notion). But sometimes, just seeing your wife will inject common sense into you and remind you that you, in fact, are an actual adult and should probably act like one and re-examine whatever action you're then taking. Seeing any adult would probably do it, but since your wife is normally the other adult that happens to live in your house…

… so I'm running down the driveway and I see my wife in the window, looking at me suspiciously, and I stop my roar and I smile and I see an increasingly quizzical look on her face and I realize that it might appear to an outsider, or even an insider, and, maybe even to my wife, that I'm trying to kill my children with my lawnmower. So I gradually slow down, play it cool, turn the mower around, act like nothing ever happened. And so ended the lawnmower chase.

It's when I look back at times like these that I sometimes question my fitness to be a father.