Shortcuts are not all they are made out to be. As most everyone on the planet has discovered, (and rediscovered), time and again, is that, in the end, they are forced into a much longer and more complicated process than if they had they opted not to take the shortcut in the first place.  Once this ‘easy’ route is taken, and things go amiss, there is no choice but to repair the damage done by going down this road. The original goal is instantly tossed aside and it moves to trying to start over where it all  began, only to discover oneself a bit further behind that point. This is where the trifecta of elements used to make things right once again come into play: a huge waste of  time, a burn of lost energy , and the inevitable mind-numbing frustration.

‘THE LAZY MAN ALWAYS DOES TWICE THE WORK’ – SPANISH PROVERB

            My latest foray into the world of multi-tasking, as it applies to my world of yardwork, began at 10am on a lovely, early spring day. I had the fever, and my lawn certainly did as well. My thought was that a quick mow and trim would cheerfully welcome my yard back into the world of the living, and then I’d hit the dirt in the gardens where the real beauty treatment would take place.

It began as usual, with an attempt to start the mower, only to discover it was out of gas. I dug some change out of the crevasses of my car, found the gas can, and made a quick trip to the local station. After wrestling with the pump, (didn’t have my glasses on to see what info the pump was forcing me to provide),  a kind patron directed me to enter my zip code,  and 4 dollars and a full-body dousing with a warm spray of gasoline later, I was on my way once again. After filling up the mower and an over-enthusiastic attempt to start it and get this project rolling, I flooded the mower and decided to give it a rest for a bit.  On break, I went in, had a cool drink, and had to stay standing, so that the gasoline I was now covered with would not get on the furniture.

Determined not let this get the best of me, (though I must admit a bit of the ‘cheeriness’ of the project had begun to fade),  I went back out, refreshed and ready to roll. The mower, now full and happy, easily started up. My estimated mow-time for my little lot in the city was about 15 minutes and I pushed my mower over the first strip of the bumpy and patchy landscape that is my lawn.

Soon after, I came to the railroad ties that serve as the dividing line between my yard and my neighbor’s directly to my side. At that point,  for some reason, probably because I felt I was already running behind, I made the fatal decision to try to trim and mow at the same time.  (Quick flash back in my mind that my neighbor had some sort of irrational fear that something awful would happen to our railroad ties…).  I made the move to lift my mower strategically, at an unnatural angle, to trim the long grasses that grew next to the railroad ties. At this point, it all happened quite quickly. The blades of the mower made an awful sound as they whirred and stuck violently right into the side of the wood. The mower came to a dead stop and a huge puff of smoke came out of its base. The mower was now deeply embedded into the wood and could not be released no matter how hard I tried to pull it off. It was literally hanging in the air, at a diagonal angle, teetering between my yard and my worried neighbor’s driveway.

I quickly switched goals once again, and decided I would do whatever it took to just get my mower off of this wood.  I wrestled and pulled and pushed, all to no avail. All of a sudden, with the dual motivations of saving the wrath of my neighbor and retaining any shred of pride left to me,  I had a superhuman surge of adrenaline, (imagine the bystanders who lift a car off of a victim), and ripped the mower right off of the railroad tie.  I had to push it using a ‘wheelie’ technique to get it out to the curb, so the blades did not drag on the ground. I abandoned it there, put a ‘Free’ sign on it, hid the missing chunk of wood, stained what was left of the railroad tie to match what was left of it, and went in to take a shower and order a pizza as it was now 1pm, 3 hours later. When the pizza man came to the house, he asked if he could take the mower and I happily passed this on to him, wishing him well. I called my friend to hire her son to mow my lawn and thought about a former neighbor who simply posted an ‘URBAN PRAIRIE’ sign in her yard as an alternative to her ever having to mow.  Suddenly I understood.   ‘A SHORTCUT IS THE LONGEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS.’ – Well said.