2631. Garden tools

(This will be the last story – at least for a while – involving anthropomorphised inanimate objects).

“I’ve a good mind to rake up some muck on our previous owner,” declared the Rake. The garden tools had been taken from their tool shed home and dropped off at a second-hand shop. There they lay gathering dust on an obscure shelf.

“You’d think after more than twenty years of faithful service in the garden we’d be treated with a little more respect,” said the Hedge Clippers. “For example, the Rake and the Hoe have had a thing going for almost nineteen years. This second-hand caper will mean almost certain separation.”

”I dig what you’re saying,” said the Spade. “The Fork and I have been working as a close-knit team.”

“That’s true,” said the Fork. “Over the years I’ve forked everywhere in the garden thoroughly.”

 “I just want to throw in the towel,” said the Trowel. “”I must have helped plant thousands of plants and look at me now.”

But what is this? It is a bespectacled gentleman second-hand store customer. “He looks like an enthusiastic gardener,” said the Sickle.

“I’ll take the lot,” said the bespectacled gentleman.

Oh the rejoicing amongst the tools! “We’re staying together! We’re staying together!” they shouted in unison.

“There’s a war on,” said the bespectacled gentleman. “I’m doing the rounds on behalf of the Government. All this junk can be melted down for bullets.”

2102. Enough to make you sickle

When will the rain stop? Sabrina gazed out the window and sighed. The summer school break was about to begin. She had enough problems finding things for Travis to do when the sun was shining. But a summer of rain? Goodness.

Travis was a boy who liked his own company. He wasn’t forever going and playing with friends. He liked to do things on his own, such as mowing the lawn and picking fruit. He liked fixing things and working out how things worked.

Sabrina was not keen that he spend all his summer time sitting at the computer. And there it was; the summer break had begun! And rain, rain, rain.

Was that a break in the clouds? “Why don’t you mow the lawn even though the grass is wet?” suggested Sabrina. So he did, and after half an hour the lawn mower died.

Rising to the challenge Travis purchased an old sickle. He read on line how to use it safely – with a sweeping arm motion away from the body. Before long he got the knack of it. Rain or not, he couldn’t wait for the grass to grow! The place was a picture.

“How do you manage, with all this rain,” asked many a passer-by, “to keep your place so tidy?”

“Travis uses a sickle,” said Sabrina proudly.

It wasn’t long before someone reported Sabrina for allowing her son to use a dangerous implement. Social Services called. Such irresponsibility trusting a boy with a hazardous sickle.

Yeah, like a motor mower is any safer.

1031. Sickle

Last week I was clearing the weeds and long grass along the roadside in front of my house. Would you believe? The weed-eater ran out of fuel just when there was only a little bit left to do.

In my shed there was an old sickle, one from the old days, wedged between the wall and the dwang.  I’d never used it before, and although it was a bit rusted and blunt, I thought it would do the trick.

So I’m out there cutting the grass on the side of the road, and this car stops. It’s an old man. He gets out and he says, “Son, don’t you know how to use a sickle properly?” And I said “Of course I know how to use a sickle properly.”

He takes the sickle off me and starts cutting the grass with it, with a sweeping motion away from his body, and not towards his body like I’d been doing. “You’ll do yourself some damage,” he said, “if you don’t use it properly.”

He then gets into his car and drives off. These know-alls drive me nuts. They go around sticking their noses into everyone else’s business. It really pisses me off. So I kept doing it my way because his way didn’t work properly and the old guy with a carrot up his bum annoyed the hell out of me. I could get really stuck into the grass cutting doing it my way. It was a lot faster.

Anyway, as I say, that was last week. The doctors are still not sure if they’ll have to amputate my left leg below the knee.