Mower Wins by TKO

Mower Wins by TKO


"Well, you can't tell us you had a dull weekend this time, Mike.  What's with the black eye?" asked Skip, setting down his coffee.

"I, uhh, had a little run-in with a snake," I mumbled, wishing I had run into a door, or gotten into a fight or something.  Almost anything would have been better than the tale I was stuck telling.  Oh, sure, I didn't really have to explain what had happened, but I'd have no peace until I did.

"It was nice on Saturday, so I decided to mow the yard.  I'll probably get a new lawn mower this year, because it took a lot longer to start it this time.  Anyway, when I started down the west side--you know, where all the weeds are on that vacant lot?--I saw something come out of the weeds right in front of the mower.  I didn't hear it hit the blades, so I stopped pushing and took off the grass catcher.  The snake had avoided the blades and had curled up right there."

"But how'd you get the shiner?"

"I figured I should scare it out of my way--it was probably unhappy about almost getting shredded, because it wasn't moving back into the weeds--so I took off my left shoe and threw it at the snake."

"Your shoe?" Skip exclaimed.

"It's an old shoe," I replied, somewhat defensively.  "Anyway, you know part of the rear deck's missing on the mower, right?  Well, I missed the snake, the shoe hit the spinning blade, ricocheted off the tire and..."

Skip's laughter filled the break area, and I figured I'd said enough.  Only one question remained: How many people would he tell before lunch?

[286 words]