Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Monday, February 07, 2011 Snowblown You think I've written enough entries about my snowblower problems? Yeah, me too. I agree. Let's have another one. As I've probably mentioned, it wasn't my idea to get a snowblower in the first place, because I knew I was going to have to be the one to keep it running, and also because I knew I wouldn't be able to. But she prevailed, and we're now on our fourth snowblower. This is my favorite one, because it doesn't require me to mix the fuel and the oil before I put it in the tank, which means at least I'm not going to break this one the same way I broke two of the previous ones. And when I say the same way, I mean literally the same way. But then the first snow came, and I went out to start the snowblower -- the new, reliable two-stager I wasn't going to be able to break -- and it was broken. Simply would not start. Trash and I had made a deal the previous winter that if I bought this new snowblower, I would have to bring it in to have it fixed the very day it broke. Fine, I said, and heaved it up into the back of my station wagon so I could drive it across town -- with the back hatch open, of course -- to the one place in town I know of that fixes small engines. When I dropped it off, they said it would be about two weeks, give or take. Well, the very next weekend, it snowed for three days straight, a frozen deluge the like of which even we Minneapolitans hadn't seen for over a decade. And when I called the engine repair place for an update, they said, "Oh, about two weeks." It took several hours just to dig a path down the front steps. If my brother-in-law hadn't come over the next morning with his snowblower, we'd still be snowed in. I gave it another week, and then, at Trash's insistence, she had me call another place, one her brother had used, one that was a lot closer because it's right by M. Edium's Montessori School. You know, the one that's three miles away? Anyway, not only were they much closer, they were much faster. I picked up my snowblower from the other place (where the ETA was still, oddly enough, two weeks), drove it back to our side of town, and dropped it off at what is basically a neighborhood hardware store. A mere three days later, they called me to say it was ready to pick up. The repairs, while not cheap, were at least cheaper than a new snowblower or even a used one. And best of all, the problem wasn't because of anything I'd done wrong, but with a leaky carburetor, something I wouldn't have known how to cause even if I wanted to. So now that I've had a functioning snowblower for the past several snowfalls (I'm not going to jinx it by saying anything beyond that), I'm still dealing with a more lasting problem that came about as a result of the snowblower breakdown. I'll get back to you on that one. posted by M. Giant 7:21 PM 1 comments 1 Comments:
I always enjoy reading your stuff, even with all the snowblower talk!
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