The Chronicles of Marr-nia (Short Stories Starring Barbara Marr) (3 page)

The very next day I called our old, less famous pediatrician who gladly gave us a timely appointment.
 
Then I called Elite Academy of Dance and told them we wouldn’t be returning for any more ballet classes.
 
The fact that they wouldn’t issue a refund didn’t even register on my Richter scale.
 
I had a long and calm talk with my husband, who agreed to less work and more family time.
 
And that oddly neglected backyard – we spend hours out there now.

In retrospect, I realized something important.
 
The antidote to a Hulk attack wasn’t the cheese balls at all.
 
It was what the cheese balls represented:
 
love and fun.
 
Simple ingredients, really.

After all, what is life if love isn’t fun?

Just ask the Hulk.

“Top Lawn”

A Barbara Marr Life-of-a-Mother Short

By Karen Cantwell

“Top Lawn”

The lawn was easily six inches high, we were expecting four straight days of rain, and my husband, Howard, had another twelve-hour day of work ahead of him.
 
If someone didn’t mow that grass soon, the town of Rustic Woods would be sending out a search and rescue team to find the missing Marr family, last seen in the jungle that was once their yard.

Howard was grabbing his keys while downing the last of his cold coffee.

“I think I saw a cheetah in our yard yesterday.”

“What?”

“A cheetah.
 
It was stalking a wildebeest.
 
Can’t be sure though, with the grass so tall.”

“I’ll try to get to it tonight.”

“The cheetah?”

“You’re so funny.
 
The lawn.”

“You said you’d be at the office late again.”

“Yeah.”

“Teach me.”

“What?”

“Teach me to start the mower.
 
I’ll do it.”

Howard slid me his typical I-don’t-
wanna
-go-down-this-road look, but I pressed on.
 
I was ready to tackle the bigger things in life.
 
Truth be told, I’d never mowed a lawn in my life, and I felt rather unfulfilled.
 
A bit unaccomplished.

I rubbed my hands together, anxious for some excitement. “I feel the need, the need for speed.”

Howard wasn’t amused.
 
“Barb, it’s a lawn mower.
 
Is this really the time for a
Top Gun
quote?”

He’d crossed the line.
 
I shook a finger in his face.
 
“Any time is the right time for a
Top Gun
quote, Mister Man.
 
Don’t rain on my parade.”

Howard rolled his eyes.
 
“Now you’re mixing your movie quotes.
 
Go do what you do best – write a movie review and leave the lawn to a man.”

Of course, that was the WRONG thing to say and he knew it.
 
Five minutes later we were in our driveway with Howard giving me the one-minute course on starting a ten-year-old push lawn mower.

“Okay,” I said, repeating the procedure out loud.
 
“You push here a few times, pull there once or twice, flip this, snap that and push.
 
Right?
 
What’s so hard about that?”

“You sure you don’t want to wait for me to do it?”

“Howard.
 
Four days of rain.
 
By the time you get to this you’ll need three machetes and a wilderness guide.”

“Fine.
 
You should wait a couple hours though.
 
Let the sun dry it out a little more first.”

Waiting was good.
 
I sipped on a steamy cup of java, looked at the movie lineup on The Classic Movie Channel, fed the cat, threw in a load of laundry, and scraped up dried cereal goo off three different spots on my kitchen floor.
 
Looking at my watch and draining my coffee cup, I decided the time was right.
 
If I waited much longer, I would be late for my volunteer hour in Amber’s kindergarten class.
 
Couldn’t do that – I’d be reprimanded.
 
Not by the teacher.
 
By Amber.

I slipped into my junkie sneaks and with the intention of Moses to part the
Red Sea
, stepped outside to confront and tame the great wild way.
 
This was my day to show I was a real woman –
that
I was made of The Right Stuff.

The mower sat at the ready.
 
I thought over the procedure once in my mind before committing the true act.
  
Push a few times, pull once or twice, flip, snap and push.
 
No problem.

So I pushed that button five or six times, thought better of it and pushed two
 
more times just for good measure.
 
Then I pulled.
 
Didn’t catch.
 
That’s okay.
 
Howard said it could take a couple of times before I’d get the engine running.
 
Pulled again.
 
Hmm.
 
That was twice.
 
Again.
 
Nothing.
 
Maybe I wasn’t pulling hard enough.
 
I took a deep breath and yanked the cord with so much force, my shoulder nearly dislocated.
 
Close, but it died before catching.
 
I pulled four more times in succession, while screaming foul expletives only heard on HBO.
 
Still, the trusty lawnmower was not cooperating with its new operator.
 
I stood there, considering my options when I saw Mr. MacMillan headed my way.
 
He had that poor-little-lady-doesn’t-know-what-she’s-doing look on his face.

“Barb!
 
You need help with that thing?” he hollered from the end of my driveway.

That was all I needed.
 
Pity from a man ignited the necessary spark within me.
 
I would win this battle.
 
With one long, swift, beautiful pull, that lawn mower engine caught like a catfish on a tasty worm.

“Nope, got it!
 
Thanks, though!”
 
I smiled and waved.
 
So proud was I.

With a snap and a push, I was on my way.
 
Moving the mower seemed a little harder than I had thought it would be.
 
A lot harder, actually.
 
I reasoned that it was due to the unusually tall grass.
 
Yes, that had to be it.
 
I pressed on.

After just two or three minutes, my hands felt like jelly and my arms screamed for mercy.
 
This lawn mowing stuff was not the easy job I thought it would be.
 
For years I watched Howard breeze through in no time, practically whistling while he worked.
 
I mean, Howard does work out some, but he’s certainly not the buffest stud around.
 
How did he make this look so easy?

But I wasn’t giving up.
 
Women do this all of the time.
 
Come on, Barb, I urged myself.
 
Be a REAL woman.

Another five minutes later, sweat was blurring my vision and I felt like I’d just done ten hours bench pressing two-hundred-pound weights.
 
And the tall grass was causing me more problems than just exhaustion.
 
It kept stalling the mower.
 
After four or five stalls, I finally figured out that I could prevent the stall by pushing down on the handle and lifting the mower up off the grass just as the engine started to choke.
 
Problem was this often set me off course.
 
Consequently, my lines weren’t exactly . . . straight.
 
No problem, I said to myself – I’ll go back around and clean those up later.

Or not.

The exertion was just getting to be too much.
 
I probably should have taken up body building before tackling lawn mowing.
 
I ascertained that possibly changing my direction of mowing would alleviate the extreme pain I was experiencing.
 
Instead of going up and down the lawn, I’d start going across.
 
Couldn’t hurt.
 
Right?

What seemed like two days later, the lawn was only half-way mowed and I was ready for an ambulance ride to the
ER.
 
Not ready to give up, I opted for a brief break.
 
I’d been sweating so profusely, I was in desperate need of some water and possibly a saline infusion.

The air conditioning inside was so nice.
 
And the gallon of ice-cold water helped as well.
 
Maybe, I thought, I should leave the rest to Howard.
 
Of course, that would be admitting defeat.
 
I looked at my watch.
 
If I went back out right away, I could finish the job then pop in for a quick shower, dry off and dress, jump into the car and still be at Amber’s class in time for my volunteer hour.

Deep breaths.
 
You can do this Barb.
 
Get out there.
 
Tackle that Green Mile.

I threw my last glass of water on my face and trudged outside determined to slay this dragon.
 
Back in front of the mower, I went through the routine again.
 
I pushed here a few times, pulled there once or twice, the engine caught, and . . . hmmm.
 
What was that?
 
Flip.
 
There was something to flip.
 
Howard had mentioned it before, but I suddenly remembered missing that step on my own run.
 
I looked closer at the lever I had forgotten to flip.
 
It read, “
Automatic Drive
.”
 
Oops.
 
Bet that automatic function would have made my first attempt a tad easier.
 
I flipped.
 
Then I snapped.
 
And that darned lawn mower practically took off
on its own
.
 
I probably could have pushed the thing with my thoughts, and certainly using my hands and arms felt like a breeze.

Yee-haw!
 
I’d found the magic to lawn moving.
 
“
Automatic Drive
.”
 
Wouldn’t miss that step again.
 
Now my only decision was, which way to mow?
 
I’d done part of the lawn in one direction, and the other part perpendicular to that.
 
Well, sort of perpendicular.
 
I opted for a different angle altogether, reasoning that I could do the whole darned thing in that one direction now that it was so easy and Howard would never know I’d had a problem.
 
Off I went, singing a little song and dancing a little dance.
 
Baby animals sat and watched me with smiles on their baby animal faces and happy birds flew around me.
 
It was a scene right out of a Disney movie.
 
But somewhere along the way, I lost track of my lines.
 
They were all mixed up now – going every which way.
 
I was stumped.
 
Then I looked at my watch.

Damn!
 
Amber’s class.
 
I couldn’t be late.
 
I shut off the mower and pushed it into the garage.

I took one more look at my work before heading out to the school.
 
It didn’t look SO bad.
 
Not really.
 
Probably no one would even notice.

Since my volunteer hour was at the end of the school day, I drove both Amber and Bethany home with me.
 
As we pulled into the driveway,
Bethany
spoke up.

“Uh, Mom,” she said slowly.
 
“WHO mowed the lawn?”

“Me,” the pride obvious in my voice.
 
“What do you think?”

“It looks all chopped up,” Amber declared.
 
“Did you use the lawn mower or a weed whacker?”

My daughter.
 
The kindergarten comedienne.

“Does it look that bad?” I asked.

“It looks like a gorilla did it,”
Bethany
decided.
 
“A sick gorilla.”