StanleyWheeler

Before I tell you of the wrestle I had before the Craftsman war machine in preparation for an attack upon the green horde which has my castle nearly encircled, I must clarify the progress of Clamorous Harbingers (not to be confused with Glamorous Hamburgers). Having utterly failed to justly render an exciting conclusion to the trilogy at less than 100K words, I've decided to triumphantly end the book with not only the cataclysmic battle for the original McGuffin, but also with the clash in the caverns. I had thought to wait on the telling of the clash in the caverns until the next book, the beginning of the next trilogy, which I'm tentatively calling Wings of Rebellion, but it makes this conclusion perfect if I include it in this trilogy. My new goal is 120K words. I'm currently at around 105K, and each chapter is more awesome than the last.

It will blow you away!

Maybe not quite so literally as shown in this GIF, but, as Yoda would say, upon you a great impression made will be.

***

     I had a date with Destiny. On this day, Destiny had a mind of her own. It pained me to do so, but I had to cuff the dame around a bit to get her to see things my way. I set the date a couple weeks ago when I mowed the yard for the first time this year. The grass towered; the mower blades had all the sharp, incissive, trenchant characteristics of a wad of chewing gum--not a great combination. The war machine didn't so much cut the grass as give it a good roughing-up and warn it about what could happen next time. I had resolved to sharpen the blades before mowing again.

     The morning broke cool and clear like that first pointed paper cup of water from the cooler. The scent of insecticide wafted in from the neighboring field, and I relished the bitterness in my nostrils. I tightened my belt a notch, or I would have if I had been wearing a belt. Instead, I thrust my thumbs into the waistband of my Levis and drew them up an inch. This pair is a little loose in the waist and frequently cause me to feel like they might fall off. My wife bought me 3 pair of the articles (back when we had the brisk discussion about how I was patching my old jeans, as some of you may remember). Each pair is supposed to be the same size. One of the three fits snugly, the pair in question fit a bit loosely, and the third pair fit too tightly to comfortably wear--that's some kind of quality control they have going there. Anyway, as is my wont, I have digressed. Let me resume: I drew the jeans up an inch and strolled to the shed to select a number of old 2x6s to use as a ramp. Four was the number of the boards that I selected because I wanted to be certain the boards would hold; two felt flimsy, so I doubled them up. I lowered the tailgate on the pickup and placed the boards.

     With the table set for my date with Destiny, I confronted the Craftsman war machine. It started on my command. That's the sort of relationship we have: I command; it obeys--sometimes. I was relieved to discover that this was one of those times. I drove it part way up the ramp, enough to expose the deadly underbelly of the beast. I set the brake, killed the motor, and made a perfect dismount. Only the Russian judge marked me down out of spite, and the war machine rolled back down the ramp.

Destiny can be a fickle lass, retracting her favor just when victory seems assured. As she withdrew her favor, I slapped the retreating hand by insisting on victory: I would take advantage of the angle of the war machine and jack it up and tip it backwards to rest upon braces at the rear. Destiny laughed. When I jacked the monster higher, using two cinder blocks as the base for the jack. I raised the machine from the ramps sufficiently for it to begin to tip to one side. Not only did my blocks and jack prevent me from accessing the underbelly from the best position, the thing would never stay in place once I started twisting the bolts. I had to rethink the attack.

With Destiny's cackling laughter still ringing in my ears, I allowed that I would have to do what I had hoped to avoid. I moved the pickup to the back of the house where the ground falls away in a short but steep slope. With the boards in place, I drove the machine upon the ramp once more and set the brake. Now that the ramp angle was much less than the roughly 60 degrees (maybe less than 30 degrees here) the machine did not roll back. I had access to the mower blades. The 5/8th socket from my grandfather's old socket set proved to be the only socket that would fit the two bolts which held the blades in place. With the a hearty taunt, I showed Destiny the back of my hand, and removed the mower blades.

I thought I heard a faint giggle as I took the first blade to the bench grinder my father-in-law had given me some 30 years ago. The grinder had seen little use, but it had served me well when I had needed it. The grinding wheels didn't turn when I hit the power switch. They groaned like a sick bison in labor, but they refused to turn--which is something you expect wheels to do (turn, I mean, not groan like a bison). I assisted the wheels and got them going. When I touched the metal of the mower blade to the spinning wheel, the wheels slowed, and stopped--not the most desired result, not in the top three, in fact. Destiny loosed a peal of laughter which clawed at my ears like a wildcat with a migraine.

     I was not to be deterred. I knew how to solve this problem. I pushed Destiny away. She tripped on the hem of her long gown and fell to the ground in a sullen heap. I stepped over her to go for the secret ingredient, that salver of wounds, saver of days, and repairer of broken tangibles: money. I grabbed a modest handful of cash and headed to one of the local hardware establishments. Once upon the premises, with neither mask nor scrip, I might add (well, maybe scrip or sorts; I had cash), I confronted a dilemma. (Would a dilemma, be two lemmas?) Should I get the bench grinder for $50.00, or the hand grinder for $30.00?

     Upon reaching the checkout with my purchase, I faced another difficulty. Only one register was open. One guy was at the counter where the clerk stood behind a freestanding sheet of plexiglass, but neither wore a mask nor had any other sort of microbial protection. That wasn't the problem. The problem was figuring out who was ahead of me in the line. Someone stood on a piece of red tape on the floor. A guy in a hat stood farther way to the side, opposite of my approach. I figured I would wait casual like to see if the hat guy planned to approach the checkout. I could only hope there weren't more people lined up behind him, ready to pop into view like clowns from a tiny car, if I tried to approach the register. I learned all I needed to know when a masked lady carrying a small potted plant marched toward the counter with the intent of stepping up behind the guy on the tape. As she passed me, she suddenly drew up when realization that these were strange times tapped her on the shoulder. She looked at the guy in the hat.

     "Are you in line?" she asked of l'homme au chapeau.
     "I'm right after that guy," he pointed to the man waiting on the tape.
     She looked at me, "Are you in line too?"
     "I'm after him, unless there's someone behind him down that aisle," I replied.
     "Oh," She said. She moved back to stand behind me.

     Her confusion was understandable. Hat guy and I weren't adjusting ourselves to align with the tape on the floor which stretched down the aisle between us as we had approached from opposite sides of the register rather than up the marked aisle. That's the way we rolled.

     I paid with cash and didn't bother trying to stand behind the plexiglass as it would have been impossible to pass the money through the glass, there being no openings in it. The clerk didn't seem to care, and neither did I.

     As for the rest of my date with Destiny, that skirt snickered a few times as I assembled the hand grinder, but she was soon laughing out of the other side of her face. I ground cutting edges onto the mower blades that would make a sous chef squeal with delight, but, honestly, no one would want to cut their food with those mower blades. Not only would it be awkward, and gross because of the hardened residue of grass gore upon parts of the blade, because, although the edge may be sharp, the blades are too thick to slice meat, tomatoes, bread, and most other things--carrots, they might be okay for slicing carrots, or celery, but a knife would still be better. I see that I have digressed again. Please go to the next paragraph.

Destiny stood by in silence as I reattached the mower blades. She left and I had to lead the attack against the green horde by myself. Once more, the war machine and I took the battle to the enemy, literally mowing down the horde. The casualties were too many to number.

***

Bonus Shakespeare quote that is appropriate for the current time:

"And you all know, security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy." --Shakespeare, MacBeth, Act III, Scene 5.