Mowing blues

There is a reason that I never learned how to use this riding mower.
Actually several reasons.
First, it's Mike's toy...not mine.
Second, it just didn't interest me that much. I can drive a car, why learn to drive a riding mower?
Third (and most importantly) I figured that if I never learned to drive the thing, I would never have to mow the grass!

Unfortunately, there was a flaw in my logic.
Mike moved to England.
Now what?
Although Jonathan has driven the mower before, he never got it all started on his own.
The grass really needed to be mowed and we are having an open house tomorrow. I needed to get the lawn looking presentable. And Jonathan was at an all day Academic Superbowl Competition anyway.

So...
I decided that I would try to do it myself.
Not an easy task as it turns out.

I read the directions that were conveniently printed right on the mower. I followed each direction. I got the mower started and even managed to drive it in a relatively straight line without hitting anything. But when I stopped and looked behind me, I realized that it wasn't actually cutting the grass!

New plan.
I stopped the mower and tried fiddling with some buttons and rereading the instructions. Then I tried to start the mower again. It wouldn't start! Had I already broken it?

Long story short...it was out of gas.
Luckily we had a bit of gasoline in the garage (enough to get the mower to start).
But I was still confused as to why it wasn't actually cutting the grass.
I decided to give up and use the push mower - which I was unable to get started after priming it over and over again.
So I put that one back in the garage and tried the riding mower again.

Another long story short...
Eventually I discovered the little yellow button on the riding mower that apparently released the blades so they could cut the grass. It sounds so easy, but this took me about a half hour to figure out.

I had to be very careful as I was mowing the yard because I was scared to death that I would run into the mailbox or the house or the car or Sammy. Plus I still hadn't gotten used to how touchy the controls are. So I didn't mow very close to anything. This left me with a problem when I was finished - how to do the trim. Since I still couldn't get the push mower started, I opted for the next most logical thing (at least in my mind). Scissors. Yes, that's right! I trimmed the grass with utility scissors. Hey, I wanted to get the job done.

I'm just glad Mike wasn't there to make fun of me as I crouched down on the ground and cut blades of grass with my scissors. Of course, if Mike had been here, I wouldn't have been in this ridiculous situation at all!