© the other press ¢ Opinions

April 7, 2004

 

Ray Floret’s Foray: Gas Lawn Mowers |

Geoff Lewis
OP Contributor

 

When deciding what kind of
mower to own, consider what kind
of car you drive. Gas mowers are like
little cars that you push, unless
youre rich, or the spouse mows the
lawn for you. Then you must buy a
self-propelled mower. Unless the sit-
uation is that your spouse should
impress you with their musculature.
Then you're back to push mowers.
In that case, get the six horse. It’s
heavier, and more demanding upon
your loye-slave. For the land barons,
it must be a riding mower, but that
is to be saved for another article.

Stuff you should know about your
gas mower: Air-cooled engine. Lawn
boys are two-stroke engines, requir-
ing a gas-oil mixture like chainsaws
and any other gas motor you carry.
Better power/weight ratio. Other
mowers are four-stroke engines.
With four-stroke engines, the gas
and oil are separate. Car gas, car oil,
just like a little car. One spark plug,
one air filter, and no oil filter. Just
like your car, if it had only one mis-
erable cylinder. © Lawnmower
engines, incidentally, make good lit-
tle go-cart motors.

Gas lawnmowers pollute, gallon
for gallon, far more than cars, since
they have no emission control sys-
tem. I use about two to three gallons
of gasoline per year in my 3.5 horse
power mower. It mows two big
lawns and one small lawn every
week, or as seldom as I can get away
with. By contrast, an SUV uses
about two to four gallons per hour.
Assuming two hours of driving per
day, that would be 2,100 gallons of
gasoline converted into pollution
per year. That would fill a very large
pool. I'm not certain how many
flushes it would take to flush that
volume down a toilet.

In any event, that’s a lot more pol-
lution emitted than my gas mower, I
suspect. Emissions would be princi-
pally comprised of nitrogen oxides
(to make that nice brown morning
haze), carbon monoxide, carbon
dioxide, and many other organic
molecules. (It’s ok, they’re organic).
To reduce pollution, why not drive
your lawnmower to work, instead of
a two tonne fantasy about some-
thing stupid and irrelevant? The two
most common car fantasies seem to
be “My car/truck makes me feel
safe” (yeah right, safer than the com-
pact car driver you'll kill in a colli-
sion) and “My truck/car makes me
feel sexy” (you're only sexy to the
prostitute in the passenger seat.
S/he’ll judge you first by your
car/truck).

May I suggest, to address these
safe and sexy car fantasies pumped
into us all, to daily either feel safe at
home or confront your fears. The
roads are scary, really. Try lying
down on one, if you don't believe
me. The sexual connotations
attached to cars and trucks are, gen-
erally, absurd. Feel sexy with your
loved one, not with your vehicle.
Feel sexy away from your vehicle,

instead. Or at least park somewhere
private first, like your own driveway
perhaps. If you find yourself trolling
for playthings in your Hummer you
already lose. And, if you must feel
sexy in your vehicle, why not intro-
duce yourself to video pornography?
You can view it in your vehicle now,
I understand. You know, DVDs in
the back seat of the mini-van. I can’t
speak for many, but SUV and mon-
ster truck drivers, even if otherwise
appealing, would turn me off. If you
can make out proficiently in a small
hatchback, however, you have the
kind of nubile flexibility and exhibi-
tionistic bravado many of us seek in
a mate. Look for telltale footprints
on the inside of the windshield.

Any twinges of penitence yet? No?
How about you crush that monster
and melt it down into a couple of
compacts and a swing set. And an
aboveground pool...with a diving
board. There might be enough
paint, steel, plastic, copper, ceramic,
lead, and rubber left over to make a
gas lawnmower for yourself.

A good way to understand fear is
to bicycle around town for a
while—interactions with your fel-
low road-user all involve your being

  
 
   
  

a Page 8  http://www.otherpress.ca

crushed, squished or smeared, jam-
like against the asphalt and concrete.
Just like grating a tomato. No air
bags, no computer-assisted brakes,
no groovin’ tunes and lattes, cell
phones, and makeup. Just sweat,
fear, cautiousness, and eventually,
nice legs, back, arms, and good bal-
ance and reflexes. To level the
asphalt playing field, perhaps cyclists
should routinely carry a spark plug
on a stick. Tap the ceramic against
any drivers’ side window and the
glass will shatter into a thousand fun
pieces. Ceramic shatters car win-
dows, a truth known among smash-
and-grab artists and other low-lifes.

Permit me to indulge a fantasy,
based on a recent commuting expe-
rience. I wheel up to the driver’s side
of a stopped car with which I am
recently acquainted. Tap, tap,
smash! “I apologize for the intru-
sion, citizen, but your car passed by
very closely to me even though I was
exceeding the posted 50km speed
limit for cars, on this bicycle, down
that long straight hill behind us.
That felt very frightening to me,
particularly in light of the eraser-like
brakes I have for stopping. Seeing as
I have caught up to you at this red

light, you did not save even two sec-
onds of your valuable life by passing
me. I held you up not at all, yet you
risked removing all of the rest of my
life in your quest to save time or
whatever. Citizen, that was not very
thoughtful. Ponder your pathetic
possible motivations. Why did you
do that? And you should invest in a
less flimsy side window. You could
hurt yourself.”

My fantasy didn’t happen. I
specifically do not ride with a spark
plug in my pocket. I did catch up to
the guy who passed me, however,
and his window was rolled down. I
wheeled up, between cars, and slow-
ly passed him on the drivers’ side. I
didn’t spit, swear or drift him. I laid
a hand on the edge of his windshield
briefly, for balance, my gold ring
making a startling tick sound against
his chrome, my fingertips edging
into his field of vision. I got a good
look at him. I'll make a voodoo doll,
maybe. Next time Ill take a lock of
hair—if I live.

Many drivers think, without
thinking, that bicyclists are obvious-
ly poor, and therefore not equal con-
tributors to society. Ergo, it follows
that cyclists’ lives don’t need to be

protected as carefully as the more
“productive” driving caste. Ride an
old bike with a garbage bag full of
empty cans and drivers will acciden-
tally aim for you. I know, I also
drive. The carnage is unending
because many of us drive like the
macrocephalic chimps we are.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah,
lawnmowers. Change oil at least
once a year. You can tip the mower
over and drain the oil out the top
spout if you want, it’s easier. Recycle
the oil at a gas station. Check oil
level before every use, with the dip-
stick. Don’t store mowers with fuel
in them for months and months.
Run them empty by pouring the gas
out, tying a string around the dead
man switch and having a coffee
nearby while they run until they
conk out. Clean wet grass out from
under the deck, so the deck doesn’t
rot out through moist grass pressed
against chips in the paint under-
neath. Change air filter every year,
and spark plug when it looks
burned, worn or gunky. Unplug the
spark plug whenever working under
the mower deck, to save on fingers.
And drive those mowers carefully,
okay?

A good way to understand fear is to bicycle

around town for a while—interactions with

your fellow road-user all involve your being

grating a tomato

crushed, squished or smeared, jam-like

against the asphalt and concrete. Just like