My wife owns a landscaping company. She started out as a partner, but about the point she put enough money for us to retire on into the money pit, the other partner (who had nothing in) bailed.
Other than my non-voluntary financial contributions, I've had little to do with the company. She's territorial, and it's her thing.
One of the things they do is maintenance. She has recently started giving her crews Saturday off, but she had a couple of lawns to do today due to a scheduling mixup, and she asked me to help. Ok, how could it hurt if I did a couple of lawns? Besides, I'd get to drive my truck for the first time in about half a year.
My truck was loaded with all the necessary equipment (ummm, she "kidnapped" it almost 6 months ago, and I haven't been able to get it back). We got to the first job site, and I looked at about a 10 square meter lawn. Maybe a 5 minute job.
Hauled the mower out, and looked at it. Couldn't see a kill switch, so after moving the throttle from max/choke to mid position, I put a foot on the deck and pulled the cord. Bad idea. It had a motor drive (I did not realize that), and her employees had circumvented all the safeties, to include attaching the cutoff lever to the handle with a bungee cord.
Just my luck, it started with the first pull. The mower took off like a bloodhound on the scent as I quickly spun around and grabbed the handle with one hand. Did I mention I was off balance? Went down as the mower tried to drag me through the neighborhood. If I would have been anyone other than the one holding on, I'd have laughed myself to death watching the scene unfold.
As I'm on the ground, I tilted the thing so only the rear wheels would hit the pavement and spin as I held it. About that time, the wife remembered being told that the bungee cord had to be removed before it was started. She came over and tried to help by prying my hand off the handle (which would have sent the demon-posessesed machine off in search of neighborhood kids and dogs), while yelling at me to "let go". After I calmly explained I needed to keep a grip on the handle (ok, not so calmly, but I'm the one telling the story) I figured I may be able to kill the engine by moving the throttle to the position it was in when this story started. Put it in the max position, and the motor quit.
I'm not sure what the moral of the story is but I'm upping my liability insurance. A lot. And I'm going to start riding a motorcycle again. I figure if I'm going to get road rash, I might as well get some enjoyment out of it.
Other than my non-voluntary financial contributions, I've had little to do with the company. She's territorial, and it's her thing.
One of the things they do is maintenance. She has recently started giving her crews Saturday off, but she had a couple of lawns to do today due to a scheduling mixup, and she asked me to help. Ok, how could it hurt if I did a couple of lawns? Besides, I'd get to drive my truck for the first time in about half a year.
My truck was loaded with all the necessary equipment (ummm, she "kidnapped" it almost 6 months ago, and I haven't been able to get it back). We got to the first job site, and I looked at about a 10 square meter lawn. Maybe a 5 minute job.
Hauled the mower out, and looked at it. Couldn't see a kill switch, so after moving the throttle from max/choke to mid position, I put a foot on the deck and pulled the cord. Bad idea. It had a motor drive (I did not realize that), and her employees had circumvented all the safeties, to include attaching the cutoff lever to the handle with a bungee cord.
Just my luck, it started with the first pull. The mower took off like a bloodhound on the scent as I quickly spun around and grabbed the handle with one hand. Did I mention I was off balance? Went down as the mower tried to drag me through the neighborhood. If I would have been anyone other than the one holding on, I'd have laughed myself to death watching the scene unfold.
As I'm on the ground, I tilted the thing so only the rear wheels would hit the pavement and spin as I held it. About that time, the wife remembered being told that the bungee cord had to be removed before it was started. She came over and tried to help by prying my hand off the handle (which would have sent the demon-posessesed machine off in search of neighborhood kids and dogs), while yelling at me to "let go". After I calmly explained I needed to keep a grip on the handle (ok, not so calmly, but I'm the one telling the story) I figured I may be able to kill the engine by moving the throttle to the position it was in when this story started. Put it in the max position, and the motor quit.
I'm not sure what the moral of the story is but I'm upping my liability insurance. A lot. And I'm going to start riding a motorcycle again. I figure if I'm going to get road rash, I might as well get some enjoyment out of it.
