Pimp Your Lawnmower–Redneck style

Pimp Your Lawnmower, Redneck style—-I am told that I am known as a pretty good writer of fiction and that’s why I had to get out my trusty camera for this article.  I don’t think a thousand words would have told the story. Here’s what happened.

The other day I had a helper working on my plant hospital at my aluminum office trailer which is out in the country and I’m not going to tell you where.  I like it private. I was on a sales call and my helper, Henry, was at the office using the truck to move dead plants and pots of dirt to the other side of the lot. Now, Henry means well, and he’s a good helper, but I still can’t figure out how he could get the truck stuck on level ground in the middle of a drought. But he did.  He called

“John, I got a problem. I got the truck stuck.”

I answered, “That’s all right, Henry because we got neighbors on both sides just praying for a reason to crank their tractors.” I thought for a minute and continued, “Just use the wheelbarrow until I get there, I’m on the way.”

 I was driving down the road just past the jail, heading toward the office when the phone rang again. It was Mr. Duck.  Mr. Duck lives on one side of the office and Bud lives on the other. Travis lives across the street from Mr. Duck. I call the three of them my “burglar alarms.” Nothing goes on out there that one or the other of them doesn’t see.

Mr. Duck said, “John, something’s wrong, there’s a guy out there pushing a wheelbarrow around the other side of the aluminum office trailer and there ain’t neither one of your trucks there.”

I replied, “It’s OK, Duck. That’s Henry. He’s got the truck stuck and I’m just passing the jail—almost there.”

And Mr. Duck said, “Awww, Man, I’m on it, John, I’ll get me a chain and crank the tractor.”

 Well, Mr. Duck was pulling in the driveway on his Massey Ferguson when I got there and we went around back to where Henry had backed into the only possible hole in the whole yard.  Mr. Duck started backing his tractor up to my truck and that was when I noticed Travis, sitting over to the side on his riding lawnmower with a Natural Lite in his hand. Travis is a good guy and he had already heard about the stuck truck emergency.  Travis had dropped everything but his Natural Lite, clumb on his riding mower, and rushed over to help. He got off his mower and got on his knees to hook up the chain. He had to tie the chain and on the first pull, the knot in the chain came loose. Travis tied it again, looked at me grinning and said, “Tight, ain’t it?” Then he turned toward the tractor and yelled,“Duck, how come you didn’t bring no damn hooks?” and Mr. Duck said it was an emergency and he had got in a hurry and forgot.

But the truck came out of the hole just fine and the emergency was over. I gave Mr. Duck some pots of red begonias and he headed home.

That’s when I really noticed Travis’ lawnmower.  I quickly whispered to Henry to run real fast and get me the camera out of the truck. It was relatively to keep Travis talking while I waited for the camera. I found that he loved to talk about his lawnmower.

I saw a machete fixed on the right side of the mower and asked about it. Travis pulled it out of the holder, raised it up, and said, “It’s in case there’s any snakes hanging out of the trees. ‘Course, it could be for lots of things that I don’t like. This here cutter is razor sharp.”

I took a good look at the machete holder and remembered that if there’s anything a good redneck likes better than duct tape, it’s drywall screws. Every good redneck had a “deewalt” screwdriver to drive them in with, too. It doesn’t seem to matter what brand a deewalt is, either. It can be made by Sears and Roebuck, but it’s still a deewalt. Here’s the rig:

And here’s a close up of the machete rig showing the wire that finishes it off

I next noticed that he had his weedeater mounted under the seat so it would be handy if he needed it.

I looked at the drywall screws again, thought about it and asked, “Well, where’s the “duck tape”? I know there’s some around here somewhere.” Travis replied that he was a firm believer in duck tape and that he was getting an extra mile out of one of his boots. He put his boot on the hood of the mower.

I asked him what that was that was wrapped up in a K mart plastic bag on the front of the mower hood. He replied, “It’s a spotlight. Sometimes I got to go spotlight a coon or a burglar for some of the neighbors. The headlights is good enough for driving, but I need the spotlight to find the coons in a corn patch. It cuts on with a toggle switch hooked in to the battery behind the seat.”

I could tell that Travis was about ready to leave as he reached down with his left hand. I had to look around the other side of the mower to see his cup holder (substitute “beer holder” if you like). It’s made from a cut off plastic bottle and mounted with—you guessed it—two drywall screws.

I got a little closer for a more detailed look.  What genius!!!

I asked Travis where his beer cooler was and he said, “It’s at the house. I’ll drive this here mower and drink me a beer until I’m finished with the Natchal Lite. Then it’s time for a break and I gots to get off the mower and git me another one.

Travis said he “couldn’t stay no longer ’cause it was time for a beer break and he had to go home and get one. I thanked him for the help and watched as he drove down the driveway. I guess he had decided to work on his tan

Jtpm…7/10/11

As usual, I would just love for you click here to go to Amazon and purchase the ebook edition of my wonderful book, Requiem for a Redneck to go on your Kindle. I have also noticed that Amazon now has a free Kindle app for iphones and tablets. Is that cool or what?