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archive:humor:mowers
Department of Agriculture Bulletin #265
 (Some Notes on the Operation of Rotary Lawn Mowers)

Power driven rotary lawn mowers are a great boon to shiftless suburbanites whose lawns are full of dandelions, buckhorn and other weeds too tall for the reel-type or conventional grass cutters.

The rotary mower, however, is not an unmixed blessing. Unseen rocks and sticks, to say nothing of unburied bones, will raise hell with the blades. So will nails, bits of wire, and other metal debris. But these problems pale into insignificance when compared to the unhappy result of running a rotary lawn mower over newly deposited dog shit. Until you have had your shoes shined with pulverized dog shit you cannot appreciate the extent of this problem

Cat shit, to be sure, smells worse, but cats, as everyone knows, are more careful to cover up their waste than are dogs. Moreover, cats do not shit as much as dogs, unless you have a very small dog and/or a very large cat.

There are a number of approaches to the problem of animal excreta vis-a-vis the rotary lawn mower, but, unfortunately, no real solution. First, of course, you can try to keep dogs (and cats) away from your lawn. The only effective method for doing this is to buy a dog bigger and ornier than any other dog in the neighborhood and train him (a) to chase other dogs off your grass and (b) to shit on the neighbor's yards. There are obvious drawbacks to this method of combating the problem.

First, of course, there's always the chance that one of your neighbors will hire a cow and train it to deposit cow flop on your lawn. It has been estimated that a rotary lawn mower operating at 3450 RPM can hurl a normal deposit of cow shit as high as your second story windows and over an area of 500 square feet. Building a fence is a possible solution, but expensive. It is, in addition, no good unless you can train your wife and children to keep the gates shut. And, too, some dogs will jump fences, even when full of shit.

There are various commercial preparations, sold mostly to evil-minded old women, which are supposed to discourage dogs from (a) screwing lady dogs on your front stoop, or (b) peeing on your shrubs. These chemicals are useless since it is second nature for dogs to screw and pee, just as it is for most humans. Even if these preparations did not work, of course, they would not solve the basic problem created by the rotary mower.

This leaves three other possible solutions, i.e.,

1.  Let the goddammed weeds grow.
2.  Move into an apartment and use the rotary mower as a 
    window fan.
3.  Wear brown shoes when mowing and associate only with
    people who either do not mind the smell of dog shit or
    who are too polite to mention it to you.

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