Mowing the lawn sucks. There, now you know my feelings on the green stuff that grows in front of our house. Don’t get me wrong, I love looking at a freshly mowed lawn, and the smell is what I spend half the winter looking forward to. But the actual act of mowing is a pain in the ass. So guess what I did when I got home today?

I guess it wouldn’t suck so bad if the bagger on our mower would actually work. Every time I mow, I have this great hope that when I’m done, the bags on the back of my expensive piece of machinery will actually be full of lush, recently cut blades of green awesomeness. Every time I’m disappointed and left raking.

After some extensive research (okay, Googling) while in the bathroom at work, I found a few things to fix the overpriced machine. So I went home excited today, quickly pulling out my mower when I got home. I put it on the mower lift, dug my hand underneath the deck and began peeling away the years of caked on grass. I couldn’t feel the grass with my gloves on, so I took them off and promptly started cutting up my hands on the blade. Through the blood and dirt I got most of the deck cleared away. I pried the bagger attachment back onto the deck and cried out in victory. For some reason the neighbors immediately went inside and closed their windows. I pulled the mower off the lift, engaged the blade and…

Damn thing still doesn’t pick up any grass. On the plus side, my Lillies are looking fantastic!

A long afternoon of mowing lawns does make one hungry. My wife bought Panera and we used their awesome delivery service. If you haven’t used it before, you should try it out. Just don’t think it’s going to be delivered on time. Or warm.

Here’s how it works. You open their app, find what you want to eat. Find something else you may want to eat, because what you really want is “Not Available at this Time”. You enter your credit card number and submit your order. A few minutes later, you get a call saying “I’m sorry, that brownie your husband wanted after a long day of work and mowing/weed whacking the lawn is not available at this time. Can I interest you in a raisin soy cookie?”. You then get an e-mail saying your food will be at your door between 6:35 and 6:45 (it’s about 6:00 when you place the order). As an added bonus, you can now be notified when your food is on its way. Yaay!!

And then the wait begins… It gets closer to the time the food is supposed to get to your home and you still haven’t heard anything. You obsessively look at your phone, just knowing that eventually the text will come through. It’s 6:47. They’re two minutes late. 6:50. What the hell?

Finally, the text comes! Your delivery is on its way! The food has left the restaurant. It’s in a car and you can track it. Thank you, Panera app!

So you track your food. Only seven minutes until it arrives. Hell yes, only 12 minutes later than it was supposed to get there (at the latest). You’re giddy. You check the driver’s progress… as they drive the opposite direction from your home. The time, which originally said seven minutes, is now 15 minutes. What. The actual. Fuck.

The obsession is greater. You’re watching the map more intensely, watching the little Panera package driving further away from our home. You stare at it, willing it to move closer. Eventually the package starts driving the correct way… and then turns down a completely different side road. ARGH! The time ticks away. Back down to seven minutes. Finally three minutes… and zero! Your food is here, the app tells you. Two minutes later, the doorbell rings. The driver is apologetic. Your family is hungry. It’s been over an hour since you ordered your food. The restaurant is only two miles down the damn road.

Whatever, I made my own thing for dinner. Who’s up for some good old fashioned Mac & Cheese with seasoned pork?!?

Mac & Cheese, ground pork marinated in Worcestershire sauce and ground black pepper

I’d do one of those “Mmmm Delicious” videos, but let’s face it, this is a blog that makes no money and I have two kids, so there’s no time-lapse camera rig in my future.

My food was great, the kids were eventually happy, we choked down our raisin soy cookies and all was right with the world. I even read my oldest son one of his newer books. He loved it, because Fly Guy is awesome. He loved it so much that, as we went to sleep, he gently said “Daddy, I want mommy. I’m afraid of fires”. Ahh yes, another winning bedtime for dad!

Fly Guy is an awesome series. Highly recommend for kids!

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