I’ve been all moved in to my new place for about a month now. Being that it’s a house, there’s a little more upkeep that we need to do than there was at the old townhouse. Namely, cutting the grass.

So on Saturday, I pulled out the mower, threw on my iPod, and fired her up. I got about 3 pulls on the starter cord before it snapped. Shit! It’s not like I really wanted to mow that much. I was more pissed because it’s not our mower.

See, the owner of the house left it here after he moved out. I’m not sure if he left it intending to just toss it out (they did leave a bunch of other junk) or if he left it intending it to stay with the house. Either way, it wasn’t mine and I just broke it.

After I got over the initial panic, I started to look things up on the internet. It turns out, it’s only a $3 part and a little work to replace. I called my dad to ask for some advice. He really couldn’t give me much, but I don’t blame him. He’s not a mechanic.

After giving things a look over, I disconnected the spark plug and started unscrewing. I only got 1 screw undone before I ran into another snag. I needed a socket set and we don’t have one. My dad’s was is still up in Virginia with him, so I couldn’t use his. I had a thought to buy one, but didn’t feel like running out and getting it. So I just wheeled the thing back in the garage for another day. I’d have to buy the cord anyway before I could do anything.

Fast forward to tonight. I had myself a cord, but still no socket set. During our weekly poker game (which I knocked 6 people out of and made $30, YES!), I just threw it out there and it turned out John had one in his car. Bingo! So after the game, we decided to tackle it.

It probably wasn’t the best idea to start on it at 10PM, but after fiddling for about 45 min, I got it running again. Go me! It gives me some hope that I won’t be a totally useless husband someday.