Great Suburban Traditions No. 12: Learning To Love Your Lawn Mower

Travels through space, but can it cut grass?

This week’s episode of Dr Who showed the Doctor in a sentient rapport with his Tardis – an upright, oblong, time- and space-travelling police box that turns out to have feelings. I can relate to this, as I have a similar relationship with my lawn mower.

When we moved here a dozen years ago, we were advised that American suburbanites get Central American sub-suburbanites to cut their lawns for them, at a cost of around $20 to $30 a week. Being filled to the brim with Scottish blood, I went and bought a mower of my own for $140, and recouped my costs within about a month. Ever since I started calculating the ever incremental sum that I’m saving, I’ve sensed a very special bond between us.

In the instruction booklet, it said that in order to eke a longer life out of your mower, you should ‘winterise’ it every autumn so that it’ll be in top shape for the spring. I can’t recall exactly what this involved (some sort of getting on your knees and lubing and waxing and taking it to bits) because I lost the booklet, but me and my machine reached a different