Slightly Off the Mark: So, I Set Fire to My Snowblower

If you've followed me long enough, you've probably heard of the Infamous Exploding Lawn Mower Incident.

But probably not--it happened a very long time ago, when my main social media was LiveJournal. Maybe I'll track it down and reprint it one day. It was quite the tale: mushroom clouds, HazMat response, involvement with both the ATF and the Federal Aviation Administration, a Time Magazine article entitled "Will Flying Lawn Mower Blades Cause Global Cooling?" To this day, it's believed an engine bolt is orbiting Earth.

Really, the only way I could top that would be to set fire to a snowblower.

If you can actually see this video, I'll be very surprised and impressed at my technical ability.

It couldn't be as bad as the mower. First of all, the snowblower was electric, and didn't have much power to begin with. That might be what killed it: overwork. this is the first time I ever tried to run it through three foot snow drifts, and I suspect it was designed more for Texans who use them once every five years for a two inch catastrophe.

Besides, it was four degrees, and still snowing. A shovel full from a foot away, and any small appliance fire is out. I've responded to grass fires where I just stepped out of the fire engine and stomped the flames out with my boot--it was like that. Embarrassing. A wafting wisp of smoke, to be poetic.

Which doesn't mean the incident won't get bigger and bigger, every time I describe it. By the turn of the decade it will involve a blizzard, the National Guard, and the Space Force zapping parts out of orbit.

What happened? Well, the snowblower acted a lot like my back: It complained mildly, then it screamed in agony, then it stopped working. I put ice on both of them.

I suspect it burned out a belt thingy, as happened last year with our vacuum cleaner. (The snowblower, not my back.) There was smoke then, too. In that case I replaced the broken belt, and it still wouldn't work right. Now we have a new vacuum cleaner that I'm afraid to use.

Will I try to fix the snowblower? Probably not. We got it on clearance, it's four years old, and every light in the house dimmed whenever I plugged it in. I probably should consider myself lucky for not being electrocuted the first time, let alone trying to replace a belt thingy. Besides, I'm only assuming there is a belt thingy.

Now I can only hope there's not another snowstorm this winter, and we all know how my hopes go. Since I'm retiring from dispatch, I figured out how many books we needed to sell to replace the blower, and it comes out to 347, depending on the book. I can do that in a year, but by then we'll probably have to replace the stove.

The good news is that the neighbors on either side of me have real snowblowers, the gas powered kind. They've always been nice to me, at least since the restraining order prevented me from singing outside.

I should consider myself fortunate the DHS didn't set up a tent in our yard again--it killed all the grass, last time.

Maybe that was for the best.