I live on a gorgeous piece of property and love working in the yard. There’s so much to keep up that in seven years, I haven’t gotten on top of it. Never mind that I keep planting more amazingness, but that’s beside the point. The point of this post is to disclose a momentous discovery.
Historically, my dearest has stepped up willingly to hook me up with tools that claim to make my yard work easier. Take for example the weed-whacker. Holding it like a flagger with a stop sign, he teaches me the basics. I have a lot of questions but I’m trying to keep-up with the directives. I figure it’ll come to me once I start working. Friends, it doesn’t.
He sets it on the ground and yanks on the starter cord by powerfully pulling back with his long arms. It sputters to life and he plops massive earmuffs over my head. I know exactly how David felt when King Saul put his armor on the lad. But I’m more determined than he was to get those Goliath weeds. As he walked away, I thought I saw a smile.
No sooner does he round the bend than the darned thing dies. He walks back and this time, I swear I see him roll his eyes. “Pull on this,” he instructs, pointing to the cord. I pull with all my hundred pounds. It is not impressed, and it rolls its eyes. “Pull again.” I do. Nothing. He sighs and applies his two-hundred pounds to the cord. It promptly snaps to attention and goes to work. That makes me mad.
“Don’t turn it off,” are his parting words.
I start to lunge for him with the roaring beast, but the top-heavy, gangly body starts swirling. I feel like a drunk giraffe with an anvil for a head. I move this way and that to stabilize it but the oversized earmuffs, swimming in the opposite direction are now covering my eyes. I try to use my shoulder to move them but in so doing the anvil whacks against a tree which, irritated, bends in the same direction I was going, then catapults me to the ground.
Lights out.
I lie there for a minute, my hands neatly placed on top of each other as though I’m in a coffin. The weapon of my death straddles me, its engine is laughing so hard that it rolls over and dies. I remember thinking that this is not quite how I had envisioned dying. I’d hoped for something more dignified.
Then I see a bright light. At the time I thought it was the light at the end of the tunnel ushering me to the heavenlies, but no. It is enlightenment that sends me back to earth to reveal to my fellow women that we have been wronged all along. Why is it that it takes him five minutes to tame the yard with this beast, but it takes me an hour to stabilize myself under it? Why? Because, the twenty-pound, twelve-foot, murderous, gas- guzzling barbarian was not made for a hundred-pound, five-foot woman. That’s why!
And those snide statements: “Just pull here,” “be careful,” “don’t kill it,”… Those, my warrior friends, are part of the ancient code that has kept us hobbled for millennia. But we are shackled no more.
Ryobi to the rescue!
I picked myself up a three-pound, four-foot, electric weed-whacker. That baby rises when I walk up to it and salutes me like an eager recruit. Friends, I have since dominated acres of weeds, slain unruly lawn edges, and tamed defiant bushes.
Moreover, there is no need to earmuffs as my doll purrs in my arms. No choking fumes. No insolent pull-cord. No leaking gas. No snide comments. No anvil-giraffe hybrid. This, women, is what we were made for! This is power. I have to go!
In the name of all that is good, your wrath upon this world is over.”
Wonder Woman