Remember that story about me mowing the ditch next to the busy road, and the military recruiter stopped by to “bring me a drink?”
Well, I can’t remember how many times I mowed that ditch. At least once a week during the summer. It’s so steep my feet were almost at a ninety-degree angle walking on it. I considered fastening suction cups to the bottom of my shoes. It was so deep that when I was mowing at its lowest point, the passers-by would see a head bobbing back and forth at street level.
And, of course, since I was young and fit, Dad always made me mow the ditch. This ditch is a quarter of a mile long. And if the grass is slightly damp, there’s a high probability of losing a toe or two.
One day, the steepness of the trench caused the rubber cover on the spark plug to fall off. How do I know this? What else could have caused it? It certainly wasn’t because I was sick of mowing the ditch and had tossed the push mower across the span of the ravine because it kept slipping down the dastardly slope.
No one has ever accused me of being a mechanic. I wasn’t even sure what a spark plug was. The term “spark” didn’t mean much to me at this point. I’d seen sparks before, but they never amounted to much.
I knew enough to realize that the cover needed to be on the end of the spark plug. Dad had probably mentioned it to me in passing.
Spark is an unassuming description of such a powerful device.
So I replaced the cover, started the mower, and for some reason, I reached back down to adjust the rubber piece. Since it had started, I should have been satisfied. But I wasn’t.
And somehow, I touched the spark plug.
I’ve never been much of a dancer, but that day I did a shimmy that would put James Brown to shame. It would be hard to recreate a dance like that one.
After I finished shaking and shimmying across the freshly cut grass, I regained my wits about me. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs. Then I noticed the cars on the highway had slowed down and were watching the show.
I took a bow and finished mowing the Grand Canyon of ditches. Every few steps, my body would unexplainably twitch and glow.
I’ve never touched another spark plug.
to the unintentional cha-cha-cha dancers,
– Caleb
caneymountainblog.com 