Runaway lawnmower!

Living in the country makes it so that there is plenty of lawn for everyone. This also means your screwed if you don't have a ride on lawnmower. I remember when we first moved from the city to the country. Once I saw the ride on mower I was quick to volunteer for lawnmower duty. After my Dad showed me the ropes I was good to go. There's nothing like driving a lawnmower at 3 mph when your 10 years old. Feelings of immense pride come over you as you mow, row by row, all afternoon. 10 year olds take these jobs seriously.

I remember once I decided I needed some company out there. After a while it gets boring so you have to come up with some sort of entertainment. Bored with the things I usually came up with, I invited my twin Brandon to ride with me. We had ourselves some real fun! Going around the yard at 2 mph (2 because of the added weight ), both squished on that little drivers seat... oh yeah. Good times! Well after a while of this Brandon got bored and decided to make things more interesting. He informed me that I needed to pop the clutch so he could change our speed. He obviously wanted a change of pace so I did it. As I clutched he threw it from 2nd gear to 6th! In the blink of an eye we went from 2 mph to 20! We went careening around the yard, both screaming at the top of our lungs, (me out of fear, Brandon out of pure delight). Once I recovered from the shock of it, I decided to get back control. I quickly went to clutch only to discover that it was stuck! At that moment Brandon yelled particularly loud. I looked up and was greeted with the sight of a huge tree stump right in our path. I yanked the steering wheel and, causing on side of the mower to become airborne, and we barely missed what probably would have been a tragic collision. At this point Brandon realized if he wanted to live he better had better help me stop the mower. I was finally able to clutch, but then Brandon couldn't change gears! I was just about to give the order to abandon ship when he finally was able to pop it into neutral and our ride ended.

We sat there for a minute or two, relishing the fact that we were alive and no major damage had been done. After making a quick recovery we decided we were done for the day. Brandon went inside while I parked the mower. Not wanting to ride the thing, I put it into neutral and pushed it. Now we parked the mower at the top of this decent sized slope. It was steeper than it looked. I had to push the mower a little ways down the hill to where we parked it. As I began to go down the hill I quickly came to the realization that I probably shouldn't push the mower down the hill. The mower had other plans though. As it picked up speed I put all I had into stopping it. I dug my feet in and held onto the back hoping that would work. Riiight. The mower shot down the hill dragging me along behind it. For some reason I thought I could stop it, even when I was being dragged spread eagle. The thought to let go didn't occur to me until I saw the tree. THEN I let go. I probably should have held on seeing as the mower completely missed the tree. I on the other hand crashed full force into it.

The mower probably planned it that way...