Just last Friday morning I posted about our plan to get one of those fenceless fences to keep the dogs inside our property so they can go free without us worrying about them getting in trouble. Our commenting comrade P.L. Woodstock noted that a neighbor's dog happily got by on a tether, until some idiot busybody sneaked onto the yard at night and cut it up.
Well, we had a tether in the backyard, which was very useful when our dogs were puppies and didn't know or listen to anything. I was still obliged to use it occasionally when certain dogs were in a particular mood to misbehave, but I hadn't actually used it since last fall. So I was thinking once we had the fence installed I could pull the tether post up -- although when other friends' dogs are visiting it has proved to be useful. So maybe I should leave it...?
Then, Friday afternoon, this happened.
What you see here, on the floor of my garage, is what is left of a tether post and the tether when it has been run over by a three-blade 800-pound lawn mower. Well, after I dug what was left out of the ground.
Longtime readers will know that I took great pride in cutting my own damn grass, but when I started to have back issues I had to stop. Time also became an issue; what is a two-hour job for me is a fifteen-minute job for the boys on their huge riding machines. Who ran over the tether post on Friday. I've been using the same outfit for more than a year now, so it's not like the metal post in the middle of the yard leaped up and surprised them.
No one said anything, although I have to think this played hell with the machine blade. This is about a two-foot length of steel, totally bent, the top handle sheared right off (I still haven't found it). The nylon cord wrapped around the thing was cut into a hundred fuzzy little pieces; the driver had to have seen this.
Despite the damage to the post, it was still firmly wedged in the ground. The thing had been a real bear to install, and I did it by putting a hard length of wood through the top handle and twisting it in like a screw. It was not easy. Saturday afternoon I dug it up, because with the handle gone and the shaft bent there was no way to screw it back out.
So, like I say, the timing of this incident sure was weird. Is it karma? A sign that the electric fence was the right move? Or just a heedless worker rushing through a job and not paying attention? Or it is plain irony, that the service I engaged to save my achin' back led to me digging with a spade in hard, sun-baked dirt?
I take all such ambiguous happenings as evidence the universe is really against me. (In a mostly practical joke, sniggering way.Gremlins, dontchaknow.)
ReplyDeleteYour universal relationship may be more amicable, I suppose. In fact, I think it has to be.
My dad always said, if you don't laugh, you'll cry. Given the choice I would always prefer to laugh. Of course, that doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get me.
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