Our Machines Can Make Us Crazy

We're humans, and we want things to work when we want them to work. It's that simple. After all, it was our genius that made the things that should work when we want them to.

On our terms, by the way. We control the machines. Not the other way around.

Still, often times the machines are uncooperative sods that no doubt become the very bane of our existence. And we let them know it when that happens. We're all guilty of having delivered a hefty kick, the swing of a hammer, or shouting profanities that would make even grandmas with combat boots bat an eye.

Sometimes I think they are laughing. The machines. At us. They just sit there watching us lose our minds, thrown into wild fits of rage, silently guffawing knowing that ultimately, they have never lost their upper hand.

I remember one awful winter decades ago when my wife and I lived in West Allis, a suburb of Milwaukee. A big snow had fallen, and it was the first of the season, and while winters are not rare at all in Wisconsin, somehow there were times when you thought maybe it would never actually come.

You get used to winters there, sure. But it didn't mean that when it came, I had any mad desire to get out there and fire up the snowblower to clear it.

But of course, like many jobs, the job just has to be done. And so even if you have no real desire to do it, you bound out anyway to carry out your humanly duties.

I suppose there is the consideration of what may have been more unpleasant than the alternative. Perhaps I decided to say, "Screw it," and then my wife decided to go out for some reason and had to trek through knee-high piles. I'd never hear the end of it.

Even though in order to get to my garage, which was the typical detached variety you find in Milwaukee, set along alleys, I had to trek through it first just to get to the snowblower in the first place.

By the time you get there your legs are literal caked, blocks of ice.

I had an old Toro 20" cut thrower. It was the kind that you had to mix the oil and gas and prime. For all intents and purposes, its common nickname, "Pain in the Ass," was an appropriately earned moniker.

Luckily, I was prepared and had already mixed the gas a month or so before the winter settled in. I poured it into the tank and began to prime. Ten compressions of the primer bulb ought to do it, I thought.

And then I pulled the cord. Nothing. Over and over again I pulled and pulled, and she didn't even want to act like she was going to roar into life.

Why do we often associate machines with women? It does seem like an odd thing. Perhaps it's because like machines, the women in our lives also wield the upper hands.

I gave it some more priming, pulled a few more times. Primed again and pulled again and again.

I got nothing, but damn sure I thought, "I bet it's flooded now, which is going to make it even harder to get it going." I was literally accomplishing nothing. I eyed the shovel hanging on the wall.

"That's not happening," I said and shook my head.

Suddenly my wife appeared. It's not to say she was never a helper in the effort. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I can't get the damn thing to start," I told her. I used another word than damn.

I primed it a few more times and pulled a few more times. The only thing I was accomplishing was at least generating some heat to battle with the cold, and my legs were melting.

I shouted at the confounding machine, spraying expletives one after the other. In your mind you are thinking, "It's like shooting ether into the carburetor. Surely this thing is going to know I mean business and do what it's being told to do."

Fear me servant. We are your creators!

Like those silent guffaws I mentioned earlier, I swore I could hear them. Of course, it was over the suggestions my wife was now offering. There she stood, watching me being duped and confounded by a Toro, morphing into a virtual mechanic.

And now she was eyeing that shovel on the wall as though it would serve as a viable alternative if I couldn't get the snowblower started.

"If push comes to shove," she started. I knew what she was going to say.

"We're going back in the house, and I will deal with it later," I immediately snapped.

But she did grab the shovel and began to clear the apron in front of the garage. I expected no less, really. Because that's what women do. They just shake their heads at their angry, bewildered husbands and get on with things.

Meanwhile I primed and pulled, primed and pulled and didn't get so much as a cough or even a puff of smoke. But I could smell gas. Lots of it. I knew she was definitely flooded.

I was in a losing battle.

Suddenly, a few doors down I heard a neighbor's snowblower roar into fruitful life. That was it. My final straw had been drawn. I picked up my little Toro and heaved it into the pile of snow on the apron.

"That accomplished a lot," my wife said, glaring at me incredulously.

I never did get that Toro to start, and we wound up clearing the snow by hand. It was what it was. I had been defeated and that was that.

Later that day we went out to our local Menard's home improvement store, and I bought a new snowblower. One with electric start and no oil and gas mixture needed. That little Toro would be relegated to the junk heap and it was good enough for it.

But it did make me think of a news story that came out of Milwaukee not that long before my Toro wouldn't start. The one about a 56-year old man, Keith Welendowski, who was arrested because he shot his Lawn Boy.

He'd gone out to simply cut his grass and when the mower refused to start, he went into his house, grabbed his shotgun, and blew a round into it.

His fate was worse than mine. He wound up being charged with felony possession of a short barreled shotgun and disorderly conduct while armed, which carried penalties of up to $11,000 in fines and six years and three months in prison.

Imagine Bubba in the cell next to him. "Whatcha in fer?"

"I killed my blasted lawn mower."

It's on our terms. We are the masters. Or are we? Because that Toro definitely got the better of me, and Keith Welendowski didn't get the last laugh either with his Lawn Boy.