We anticipated it was going to rain and scheduled the trail ride for 10:30 am. My and Arzaana-fay’s horse’s were, like they ourselves, gentle and docile creatures who took direction and did as they were told. Gary’s horse, Gunsmoke, tolerated Gary for about half an hour and then began to adopt his personality traits.

At one point Gunsmoke decided we were clearly lost and he needed to be the lead horse and lead us out of the woods. He began pushing his way to the front of the line. Gary was forced to assert his will over Gunsmoke and not just reprove “whoa,” and released his death grips on the front and back of the saddle to pick up the reins and pull. Sadly, he pulled too hard on on the right just as Gunsmoke was passing what could have been interpreted as a horse off-ramp. On the right. Gunsmoke took the off-ramp, which was sort of a path, perhaps for small bunnies, up a hill. The horse bolted up the hill as if to stay “These women are crazy. They don’t know where they’re going. Gary knows where to go. Let’s take this bunny trail.” Gary stayed on and found himself at the top of the hill being slapped in the face by small trees.

Arzaana-fay and I stayed at the bottom and skillfully convinced their horses that Gunsmoke and Gary were crazy. Luckily, with three people riding the trail the park provide two professional riders, one in the front (Erin, whose job it is to stay and say “Good job. Just stay here. Hold her, she’ll want go up there.”) and one in the back (Emily, whose job it is to gallop up the hill and say “No – don’t pull so – hard – see – Gunsmoke will rear back – no – oh!”) and then make eye contact with Gunsmoke and leap off her horse and grab the reins. Then Gary and Gunsmoke were lead down the path by the 90 pound Emily while her horse stood at the top of the hill. As Gary said, she could tell if he got off the horse he wasn’t getting back on.

Gary’s Dad, Ken, just recently had a scare about his prostate. The morning after Ken’s yearly physical, he was out mowing the lawn when the doctor called and demanded he come in and get a battery of tests, since the results from his yearly blood tests were very bad. The doctor even specifically said, “Stop whatever you are doing and come in right now.” So of course Ken went in immediately and great quantities of urine were drained from his body and he was fitted with a catheter and what I felt was a very cunning catheter bag. And he was told, again, specifically, don’t finish mowing the lawn, there will be no lawn mowing for two weeks before surgery and then twelve weeks until after surgery.

Well, are the S_____s concerned? Are they worried about what they refer to as the Roto-Rooter surgery, during which they mistakenly think a small auger will be placed into Ken’s penis and the urethra will be widened so more urine comes out? No, why worry about such details when there is a partially-mowed lawn in Florissant? So the family’s concern is focused on how this lawn will get mowed.

Gary contacted six lawn-mowing services, since that’s how our lawn is mowed, and that’s how it should be done, especially by seventy-five year old men. All six lawn-mowing services were rejected even before they could do more than an estimate, one because they caused the dogs to bark, one because they had long hair, another caused the dogs to bark, one had no teeth, and one had (I am ashamed to say such bigotry exists in Florissant) long RED hair. And the last service had to be called and cancelled because the S_____’s could make no excuses about the last, a dark-haired fully-toothed Florissant couple who wanted to meet them before they even looked at the lawn. Ken and Wilma just said “We can’t stand having someone else mow the lawn. Can you just bring over your old lawn mower you still have in your garage and just do it for us?”
“No” I said to Gary when he told me about it, “you don’t mow lawns. That’s why you pay to have your lawn mowed.”
“I think I can do it,” he said heroically.
“No, I think you’ll make the dogs bark.”
“Really, I kind of miss mowing the lawn.”
“Stop talking nonsense!” I gasped. No way was I having him again take up entire weekends threatening to mow, preparing to mow, looking at the sky, testing the wind, testing the grass, grass too wet to mow, too long, going to be dark in a few hours, etc. “Besides, I’m sure your old mower won’t start.” The S_____’s themselves have a mower they felt was too shabby to have Gary use, the type of mower an old couple would have bought fifteen years ago at Central Hardware. Ken has to use a screwdriver to start it and there is no front right wheel.
This caused Gary to confront his old mower hidden in the deepest part of the garage. It is an old mower that a young couple would have bought fifteen years ago at Central Hardware. And Gary was ashamed.
“I can’t give my parents this old mower,” he said. “I think I’ll buy them a new one.”
I didn’t say anything, I had to think carefully at this juncture. So MUCH to say, but if I said something like “You could just buy him a new prostate, wouldn’t that be more direct?” or “You are deranged,” I could blow the whole thing. So I obliquely said,
“Won’t they be upset? You know they don’t like you to spend money on them.”
“I just won’t tell them it’s new. I’ll tell them it’s my old mower.”
“Won’t they know it’s not your old mower?” I asked, “It’ll look new.”
“I’ll dirty it up.”
Instead of saying, what, we’re antiquing a mower? We’re distressing it? I said, “Isn’t that a little deceptive?”
“NO it isn’t! They said bring over my mower, and if I pay for it, it’s my mower!” He glared at me, daring me to say something else.
I stopped being cautious with my words. “Does this depend on what the meaning of ‘is’ is, President Clinton? Do you lie to me this — “
“SHUT up! If I want to buy my parents a mower then I can, and I don’t have to even talk to you about it.” And the conversation was over. I had blown it. However, I had my own separate bank account so I wasn’t too concerned.

Gary researched mowers and decided on a Honda self-propelled model, perfect for old men because we know the mower is never going back in to our garage. Oh wait — the mower never WAS in our garage. Anyway, the next day at the lawnmower store I wandered off to the side as the salesman asked if Gary was interested in the Honda.
“Yes” Gary said, “but $1,200.00 was a little more than I wanted to pay.” It was $1,200.00 more than I would want to pay, and then Gary and the salesman left the store and I wondered what was going on. Then not five minutes later they were back and Gary was pulling out his Visa and the salesman was not with him. I went over. He finished paying $???? for a ????? and we left. He then told me they had used mowers for sale (pre-antiqued!) and he bought the same model he had wanted for only $500.00 and it had been owned by a little old lady who didn’t mow much. (She only mowed to church and back, evidently.)

And I was thinking about it and I suppose if your family is totally insane and irrational, and you yourself can’t admit you are worried about your dad, then lying to your parents and yourself is the only way to deal with the situation. Besides, I liked being the only one in the know the next day when Gary brought his “old” mower to the S_____’s and demonstrated it. His dad had never used a self-propelled mower (nor had Gary, of course) and he wanted to watch how it worked. So Ken went out in back, and Wilma and I stayed in the house, because mowing is men’s work, but I really wanted to be out there.

Gary got himself gussied up in his mowing clothes and went out and started the mower. Loud mowing sounds. Then it stopped. He came back in.
“Didn’t it work?” I asked, because I was sincerely concerned because I a) didn’t know this mower and b) thought Gary might break down and reveal the truth like in The Tell-Tale Heart.
“Come on,” he shrugged, “Started like a charm! Don’t you want to come out and see it?”
No, I thought, what I really want is to see you lie like a dog.
So went outside and Gary mowed a patch and everyone oohed and ahhed until Gary noticed that the grass he had just mowed looked identical to what he had not mowed. However, the mower had made loud mowing sounds. Gary crouched down to look at the underside of the mower. He considered his next deceptive statement.
“I can’t imagine what’s going on,” he said in all honesty.
I added helpfully, “I think this is how it’s worked every time you’ve used this mower.”
I tried to think of more perfectly honest things to say. There was more watching of Gary looking perplexed at every knob and lever on the mower, one by one. He did not crack.
I said, “Did we bring the blade?”
Ken asked, “Is the blade sharp?” even though there was no way a blade could have even spun over that grass; it was undisturbed.
“Well yeah” Gary said, “We just had the blade — ” He stopped. Technically, this was a lie. “The blade was just sharpened a week or so ago.” True, totally true, the lawn mower shop said they had serviced it.
More watching of Gary looking at knobs and levers. I got up to help Gary ponder the mower, and so that he could appreciate the glowing aura of smug that was coming quietly out of my body.
Ken said, “What does that red lever do?”
We looked at the red lever that was decorated with loosely-spaced dots that gradually became closely spaced dots, which I decided was Honda’s universal symbol for Ignore Your Father-in-Law.
Gary had regained his lying skills after the brief stumble about the blade sharpening. “I don’t know about that lever, I’ve never used it.” Then suddenly Gary said, “Oh, well of course, the yellow button.” and he sounded as if he had just pulled out of his subconscious how to get the mower blade to work. In reality, he had just noticed the yellow button on the handle marked BLADE.
So there was much mowing at th
e S_____’s, finally. Gary experimented with the red lever and suddenly remembered it regulated the self-propelled speed. There was more mowing the next weekend, and at some point the brother-in-law will also mow.

Then my only concern was that one day a S_____-in-law would visit our garage and see we still have a lawnmower in there. I mentioned it to Gary and he took it as an accusation.
“Well I TOLD them last weekend that we have two mowers. We do have two mowers. I paid for both mowers and that means they’re both mine.” He was defending old territory.
I asked, “But won’t they wonder that we have two old mowers? Don’t they think that’s odd?”
“They did ask me when I’d bought the Honda mower,” he said, “I told them it was nine years old.” Which was true.

Anyway, Mr. S_____ had his surgery, and all went well. Now it’s just twelve weeks until the S_____s begin to insist Ken wants to mow the lawn and he likes his old mower better and we will be forced to take “our” mower back and we will have two mowers in the garage and a lawn-mowing service.

Gary, at the age of 45 and 11/12ths, decided to purchase a stereo to replace the one his parents gave him when he was nine (and I was one.) One day he just showed up with a stereo. It made him feel so good, the next day he brought home the rest of an entire home theater system. The next day six speakers came home with Gary. Throughout the buying process he was very careful to evaluate where the components could be hidden and if wires would show. I, my mom, and most women I know, feel about visible wires the way Joan Crawford feels about wire clothes hangers.

Since he was so thoughtful to ensure that anyone walking in to our living room would think “why, these people must just read books all day long,” I hated to complain that he was TOUCHING MY STUFF AND MOVING IT AROUND, even for a moment, even to hide wires, even if he was moving it right back, even if he lives here. I had joked that I would like my couch potato back again, the husband who never did any projects around the house. Finally, after a few days of installing the components, we resolved it was best if he installed it late, after I went to bed. Well, that sounds like he resolved it after a fight. Okay. Actually, that’s pretty much how it was.

Late the next night he started drilling holes in the walls. This woke me up, and even though he was doing it to hide speaker wires inside the walls, within seconds I felt agitated and controlling and got up. Within those same seconds he progressed to drilling holes in water pipes and blasting water into his new home theater system. I did get to see the deluge in mid-blast, since I had got up to say “Gary, are you drilling somewhere inconspic — Auggh!” Luckily, most of the water collected in his stereo receiver. There was only a 6 foot puddle on the floor. This gave me a chance to be as tolerant as I had been controlling, so that was good.

He called the plumber and took the day off to deal with everything. Before the plumber came the next afternoon we plugged the hole by poking a pencil in it and filled up the tub with water. (I got this idea only after I brushed my teeth with water from the dog bowl.) He only bossed me once during this crisis and he apologized twice. In fact, when the plumber came Gary hearkened back many centuries to the Catholic belief that if you pay enough money, your sins will be absolved. The plumber was in the house 45 minutes and Gary signed up for the yearly preferred customer maintenance agreement, paid to have the pipe fixed, paid for a new faucet the plumber had on the truck which we needed anyway, and paid to have it installed.

So, I got about $1,000 of plumbing done to the house, and after the receiver dried out it turns out it’s a pretty cool fully-concealed Home Time-Wasting System. Gary is up in the attic now snaking the back speaker wires through the attic (it turns out those water pipes lay low to the ground. Sneaky.) The only sign of damage is the square the plumber cut in the wall, which hides nicely behind the Entertainment Center/Media Shrine. Overall, it was a good experience for me.