Evcer have a Murphy day?

I had great plans for getting some things done today by noon. There was a lawn that needed mowing and a sliding glass door that needed a part replaced. If all went well I should have been done around lunch time.

But my nemesis Murphy showed up. You know Murph. He somehow set a law in motion that seems to work regularly in my life.

First, upon examination of the part received from Andersen revealed it was not the same part I needed. In fact, this was the second time it wasn't the part. Or so I thought. A phone call from Andersen late this afternoon told me this was the replacement part. It screws in to the frame. The old one snapped in. "Do you have any instructions?" "No." A snap on stop would have been a much quicker fix than this one now that I'll have to drill holes into the frame.

After spending too much time on hold with Andersen and then searching the web site for the right part and emailing them with my find I finally got away to do the mowing around noon. After digging up a ton of sand spurs first I couldn't get my mower to start. It would crank up for a few seconds then die.

Now, I'm not the most mechanical mind in the world. I played with the throttle a bit, but couldn't see anything obvious. Maybe it was flooded? Then a phone call required my assistance in another location for about 30 minutes. I hadn't eaten since a bowl of raising bran in the morning, and it was not approaching 2:00. So I pulled into Burger King.

My guess is that I haven't eaten a burger at the King for over 4 years. I had no idea a Whopper with cheese and a medium diet coke would be over 5 bucks. I seem to be able to recall a Whopper with cheese for just under a dollar at one time. But it hit the spot. Back to the lawn mower.

Giving it a crank, it ran for 5 seconds then died. Maybe it's the spark plug? So I pull out the plug and sure enough, there's enough carbon there to create a 2 carat diamond. No big deal. KMart is just around the corner. But guess what? Nobody told me KMart no longer sells lawn mower parts. Not a spark plug to be found in the store. I seem to recall a day when you could buy everything you needed to tune up a car at KMart. So it's off to my Kitty Hawk Ace Hardware. I know I can count on them.

Ace didn't let me down. A quick installation of the plug and the mower was running like new. By now it's 3:00 and the hottest September 15 on record. It's 91 degrees. By 4 o'clock I've mowed, weed-eated (is that a word?) and even did some mowing on my neighbor's lawn and used the electric blower to clean it up. Tomorrow, btw, the high is supposed to be 76. Can I pick 'em or what?

I do have a couple of things I'd like to accomplish this evening. I just don't know if Murphy is still hanging around or not.