Today I Became A Man

What a morning... I woke up at 8 AM, did my devotion and decided that I would mow the lawn which I anticipated would take me about 30-45 minutes. After finishing the front lawn, I proceeded to do the backyard. I got finished maybe 40% of the backyard and the lawn mower dies so I figured it was out of gas. I proceeded to walk to our shed to get some gas to fill up the tank. So after filling it up some, I stopped and plugged the tank back up and attempted to start the mower back up. To my surprise, after three tries, the lawn mower didn't start back up. I looked down and I realized I had put the gas into the oil tank... you would think I would've checked twice before filling but in my defense, the oil symbol is way too similar to a gas symbol in my opinion.

I panicked and immediately thought I broke the mower. I texted my roommate Caleb because he's a handy person and enjoys figuring out to fix things/figuring things out (see our conversation below). He was in Boston with his girlfriend Lauren whale watching this weekend so I was on my own on this one. I pulled out my phone to use the ever trusty Google to look to see if others have made the same mistake as I have. It seems like this is actually a fairly common mistake, of course the first posting I read was from a high school kid who was scared his dad was going to ground him but that's besides the point. So I figured out what I needed to do, empty out the oil tank and refill it with new oil, simple enough right? My initial thought for some reason was Home Depot so I got in my car and off I went. Let me tell you something, Home Depot is a very intimidating place, there are far too many things to look at so I came up with a plan B and went to Wal Mart. Good old Wal Mart would surely not disappoint, low prices and had everything I needed.

Just in case you wanted to know I also stopped by 5 and below to buy candy to reward myself for this adventure.

I got home and emptied out all the oil/gas combo into the pan. I then poured in new oil (yes into the correct tank) and used the stick to measure how much I needed to pour. I put down the oil and went into the house to grab a paper towel. When I came back the oil spilled... are you kidding me? So out of frustration I was like whatever this must be enough. I then filled the gasoline in the CORRECT tank and was excited to see if the lawn mower would turn on. I tried three times and nothing... defeated I dragged the lawn mower back to the shed. Determined that I did everything right, I tried it one more time before placing it back in the shed and IT WORKED!

So I pushed the renewed lawn mower to the backyard and finished the job I set out to do nearly two and a half hours earlier. I had a few thoughts running through my head the whole time, 1) how stupid do you have to be to put gas into an oil tank, 2) I wonder how much this will cost me if I do end up breaking the lawn mower and 3) I hope this all works out and that I make Caleb proud!

I hope this was as exciting for you to read as it was for me to have experienced. I'm hungry and I need a nap now.

Here is the conversation between Caleb and I.

ATTA BOY!

What an awesome 50th post on my blog.