Hayter’s article for May 29,2022
“Bad Lawnmower! Bad!”
I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I wanted to be a lawnmower repairman. I can only assume that God was against it. -- “God, I hate to tell you but one of the Hayter boys has decided that his calling is in the field of lawnmower repair.”
“Fine. It’s a noble profession. By the way, which brother?” – “Mark.” -- “Oh, My word! He has trouble peeling an orange! Get down there and put a stop to it! Now!”
Here it is 50+ years later and I can now peel an orange. Tangerines are easier, but when I put my mind to it, I can de-skin a naval orange. However, I’m lousy with lawnmower engines. That’s too specific. I’ve always been lousy with any engine. However, I have been known to take off the wheel of a lawnmower, switch out the blade, and change out the sparkplug. Anything that requires the loosening of more than two bolts is beyond my capabilities. I’ve always known that, but last week I sidestepped reason and tried to determine why the lawnmower wouldn’t start. The project led me to the guts of the carburetor. A bad place to visit.
I spent half the morning and most of the evening inspecting the carburetor. Before I started, I wisely watched four videos on YouTube, each of which showed a guy taking off the carburetor on my lawnmower engine. While I don’t hate them, I really didn’t like any of the guys.
During the repair, two of them said they had never worked on the engine. But it sure didn’t stop ‘em from tearing into the thing. One guy even cut off a three-inch piece of plastic covering. He said, “I’m not sure what this does, but I don’t think we need it.” He sounded like my dad.
During the job there were tiny screws and thin aluminum wires that pull on things. They’d take ‘em off, never looking at where they laid them. A tiny pin would fall out of some contraption and they’d just set it aside. If they had any trouble, the video would have a nanosecond glitch, and the repairman would return with the situation solved. – “As you can see, I removed the deformation spigot.” What?!
Three of the lawnmowers required the repairmen to order parts. You know, stuff that fastens to the manifold oscillator switch, and some thin wire attachments. (The names of some of these parts are imagined.) I think that’s what it was. In a matter of minutes, each lawnmower was purring like an un-muffled Yugo. That’s the normal sound of a working mower.
As mentioned, I managed to remove the carburetor five times. Each time I’d try to start the mower. It never would. Start. A couple of times I had left out tiny metal things or gaskets. Give or take, there are 80 gaskets, each located in a special place. Right now, the mower is still dead, but it has all its parts in place. Not necessarily the right place, but they’re in there.
Yesterday, I began looking online for nearby lawnmower repair places. There are several in Alberta, but not that many in Montgomery County. Few places specialize in lawnmowers. Most of the advertisements list air conditioners, generators, BBQ pits, motorcycles, lawnmowers, and large leaf-blowers. See? They’re not pushing lawnmower repair. I can understand why. They’ve already got 1200 rusted, dead and dying old lawnmowers in the parking lot or behind a fence outback.
I’m assuming the overabundance of junk lawnmowers is why lawnmower repair people are so testy. I have very little pride as is, but some lawnmower people can really humiliate you. The few times I’ve brought in a mower, I always left in tears. And, that’s why I wanted to be a lawnmower repairman.
Back in the day, Dad would send me to get the mower repaired and each time, the clerks seemed to hate that I was there. When he chose to notice me, the conversations went something like this. -- Repairman: “What’s wrong with the mower?” – Me: “It won’t start?” – RM: “Why not?” – Me: “My Dad said it was the valve-release dis-condenser.” – RM: “Interesting. How do you spell that?” – Me: “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it in print.” – RM: “Okay, I’ll take a look at it. You might check back with me in the latter part of November. Maybe January. For now, just park it with the BBQ pits. Me: You want to put a tag on it? RM: Uuuh, no.”
See how badly this country needs lawnmower repair people who, at least, pretend to care? I know it sounds stupid, but maybe they could behave as if I was doing them a favor with my business, instead of trying to telegraph the notion that it would be so much better if I wasn’t there. -- Let me include one qualifier concerning my experiences with lawnmower repairmen. They apply to only one mower repair place I ever went to in Montgomery County, and that was a couple of decades ago. The other experiences were in counties both north and south of here.
And that is the reason I originally chose to be a lawnmower repairman. I would approach the customer as if I were a car salesman. Those people know how to approach!
At the moment, I’ve lost any notion of getting my mower started. Kay never entertained such a notion. The minute she saw me wheeling the dead mower out of the shed, she went online and started pricing lawnmowers. She came out and told me that a new lawnmower like the one I was working on costs twice as much as it did in 2014. – And God thought it best that I not be a lawnmower repairman? – Fortunately, He did gift me with a sense of humor.
end
Follow-up: I eventually found a repair guy, who, for a $25 inspection fee, would look at my lawnmower. He called me a couple of hours later and told me that I had a cracked block.-- Not me, my lawnmower.-- It would cost $600 to repair it, and the mower wasn’t worth it. He said I could come pick it up, or he would keep it and not charge me the $25 inspection fee. I trusted his word, because I didn’t want to load it up and look around for another mower repair shop. The rest of my life is too short. Didn’t used to be.
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