Staying on Task!

Did you ever hear of "Murphy's Law"?  It is the old saying; "anything that can go wrong will go wrong".  I generally scoff at such blankets of negativism spoken over an activity but I can't deny that I give Mr. Murphy a margin of respect.  I usually try to minimize his presence by planning for the worst and hoping for the best.  Recently, I discovered a clause that should be added to "Murphy's Law". It has to do with staying on task.

My in-laws were building a new home so I volunteered to mow their construction site with our newly acquired tractor.  This grand old tractor was acquired to replace two smaller tractors and was to be the saving grace of our property.  It turned out to not be so grand after all.  I won't go into mechanical details, but suffice to say that this blue tractor was more "tired" than we originally thought.  To be efficient, I planned for the mowing to take more time than I deemed necessary and fired up old Blue.  Then I headed eight miles down the highway to be a good son-in-law. 

Things went smoother than fresh butter running off of hot corn bread. I clipped along in high gear and arrived at their home-to-be in thirty minutes.  It took a couple hours to mow the grassy lot, visit with "Papi", and head back for home.  This was demonstrating to my wife that I was "the man with the plan".  I was staying on task to boot!  She had expressed doubts about me finishing early enough to work on our renovation project.  She never actually "said" anything to express those doubts.  It was more of a "look" on her face when I announced my plans for the day.  A woman truly does have a special type of intuition. 

My brother owns a nice deer hunting spot along the way and had recently mentioned mowing it. As I clattered toward home on the blue beast, I could see his deer property across the way.  The road leading in was very grown up!  I wouldn't want to drive my truck through all those weeds!  So I made a sharp turn into the easement intending to mow one swipe going in and one swipe coming out.  This would create a ten foot wide "driving" path. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes, if even that!  From this point forward, it would be safe to say that I was officially OFF TASK and might as well have invited Murphy to come ride the tractor with me.

Eagerly, I shut off the engine on Blue so I could engage the PTO and start it up again.  If you are not familiar with tractors, you should NOT have to kill the engine to engage the PTO...Blue will sound off a gear grinding symphony if you don't take this extra step.  Despite this inconvenience, Blue roared right back to life with the bush hog singing.  I started mowing in "granny gear" just to be safe.  Slowly I mowed along the easement leaving a clean path behind the tractor.  About fifty feet into my off task endeavor, Murphy arrived.  There was a deep wash-out hiding in the weeds!  Before I saw it,  my front wheels fell into the wash-out, hitting so hard it rattled my teeth!  My feet flailed off the foot boards as the tractor's front end hit bottom and bounced up and down.  Before I could stop the madness, the rear tires caught traction mashing the front wheels into the soft dirt on the other side.  This caused the steering wheel to spin like a tazmanian devil in my hands. In just a couple of seconds, I saw Jesus, got beat half to death, and had my achy back re-adjusted!  I eventually pressed the clutch and got the fiasco under control. Then I eased backwards out of the mess and it seemed that the only thing damaged was my nerves...

I could hear my inner voice pleading that it would be best to quit now and drive home while I was ahead.  After all, my brother planned to mow it himself but who really listens to that silly inner voice anyway?  In true manly-man fashion dodged the wash-out,  and mowed all the way down and back again.  Voila!  It seemed I had just given Mr. Murphy a bloody nose...then I tried to make the right hand turn to get back on the highway.  Blue "veered" in that direction, but he sure wasn't "turning"!  Well Dang!  Dumbfounded, I dismounted and walked around to assess the problem,  The "steering arm" is a long (straight) steel rod connecting the steering gear box to the front axles enabling you to turn right and left.  I had bent it into a "C" shape like a archers bow! I now had a friggin' tractor that would turn left, but only "merge" right!

This story ought to end here with me phoning in some help and repairing the tractor on the spot.  It doesn't.  There is an unspoken "code" among "good ole country boys" like me that connects pride to ego like an umbilical cord.  This "code" is the idea that getting something that you broke home without help is the true mark of an intelligent man.  As long as I was driving down the road, veering is all I really needed to do anyway!  I joyously wobbled toward home in high gear and ALMOST made it there before Blue's engine began to sputter.  Noticing that I was going to be stranded,  I veered into the ditch to avoid blocking traffic.  A few minutes and a phone call ascertained that the jarring impact from my little episode had dislodged some trash in the fuel tank.  This trash had sucked into the the fuel line, clogging it!  In a few aggravated minutes, I jerked the rubber fuel line off and blew into it with my mouth to unclog the line.  There's nothing quite like the taste of good old diesel fuel in the mouth....Yummy. 

It worked!  In a moment I was hitting the starter button!  In case you haven't run a diesel engine out of fuel.....don't.  The entire fuel system usually needs to be bled out in order for it to start up again. A passing neighbor saw me grinding on the starter and took pity on me.  He was carrying a can of ether!  Ether is a highly flammable gas that many people consider unsafe for use around engines.  It has been known to cause air cleaners to explode!  Angry enough to be totally care-free by this time, I told John to spray it into the breather until Blue started or we both fainted from the fumes.  Eureka!  Now I would finally get home.  Thank you Jesus!  This tale really ought to end here, but sadly, it doesn't.  Murphy wanted to help me repair the tractor!

Early the the next morning I took my three year old son "Case" outside with me to witness the repair.  To a redneck the word "repair" is a relative term.  Repairing the steering arm for us was going to involve a sledge hammer and a tree stump.  After removing it I laid the steering arm on the stump and knelt beside it.  Then I began to pound it.  Picture the game at the circus where you try to ring the bell by using the big hammer to hit a pad.  This beating with the hammer made me feel all hairy chested like I was getting back at someone.  Suddenly, I felt a fire ant bite me on the arm but when I looked down to brush it off....I saw four million MORE ants on me from by boots to my shirt collar!  The stump I was using for an anvil was their home!  Case, ironically named after high quality, American tractors, really enjoyed my skat dance.  He giggled as he watched me running, swatting, wiggling, and shedding clothes while singing a medley of garbled words!

Eventually Blue got repaired and this is where the story ends.  My son, who is named after a good tractor, witnessed cheap entertainment while watching me fix a Romanian hunk of steel.  Murphy's Law is like a snowball rolling down a hill.  It has a way of starting small and getting larger as it continues.  Getting off task must be one of Murphy's favorite triggers....as I have discovered on numerous occasions.  Stay on task! Plan for a few hiccups and Murphy will watch you from the shadows.  Get off task or ignore a woman's intuition and prepare to get snowballed!