The Curse Of The Brown Thumb

My mother is the primary lawn keeper in her household. It's been that way long before I was born.
Every Spring about this time as you come to the top of their street you'll see the entire driveway lined with daffodils, the flower beds in full bloom of some flower or the other and her roses in full bloom. I wouldn't be surprised if people drive by their house, just to see the welcome of Spring in bloom.

My father however, is not a gardener and not a mower of lawns. On the rare occasion that dad decides to help mom out and mow the lawn, nothing ever works right. Dad can try to start up the lawn mower and it never fails every time he tries, it won't start. The mower could be working perfectly fine 5 minutes before with mom on it, it's almost like the mower knows that this is not the right person mowing the lawn. My mom will jump back on and it starts immediately. Mom has some control issues and does not like anyone else messing with her lawn. She probably put some kind of hex on the lawnmower.

I seem to have my own hex going with our lawn.

Today was one of the most perfect days we've had. Not saying the last week hasn't been great, but the wind just made everything to chaotic to do anything productive. Today barely any wind. I decided that today would be the day, I would to try and get some weed trimming going around the fence line.

I dug out the weed eater out of the garage along with the extension cord. There was a plastic cover thing over the outlet on the back part of the house that refused to open no matter what. I'm thinking our land lord had never used this back outlet ever. I tried even using the shovel to just break the dadgum thing off already. No budge. I knew at this moment that the lawn trolls were laughing at me and that war was about to begin.
I fiddled with it for what seemed like a good 15 minutes when I knew I'd been defeated.
Here's the thing, when I'm doing something so "simple" as trying to open a plastic covering on an electric outlet, the last thing on Earth I want to do is ask the hubs for help. I know that great gnashing of teeth will ensue and it's just easier for me to keep trying. I had to give in at this point, nothing else was working.
After he gnashed his teeth, he came out with my hammer (it's mine now since I bashed the pickle jar) and pried it open in no time flat. I figure I was on my way without bother from there. I was wrong.
I plugged it up and go figure, the outlet didn't work...I'm guessing it was a sign to me when it didn't open, I didn't take the hint. I'm a little dense sometimes.
I caved in and used the outlet inside the house near the back door. I figure I'm cooking with fire now. Wrong.
I get it started and there wasn't any weed eater string hanging out and it wasn't really cutting like it was supposed to. I figure it needed more string. I'll be honest right here and tell you that I'm very limited on my knowledge of all things lawn care. I'm just pretending like I know what I'm doing all the while I'm probably killing our lawn. Back in our hay days we always paid someone else to do the lawn or we were lucky in that the land lords hired someone to do it at no charge.
Anyways, I figured changing out the string shouldn't be hard and I found some left over from the landlord in the garage. How hard could it be?
I opened up the string carriage thingy on the weed eater and it was full of string. Here was my question something I honestly don't know and you can laugh if you wish. What happens to the string? What is the reasoning for replacing it? Does it just get worn out or run out somehow?
I tried reading the instructions very carefully as they seemed so simple. Wind up the string, and push the carriage back in. I worked at this for a good 30 minutes just trying to get it back in and keeping the string properly wound. I failed miserably.
I'm going to tell you another little secret. I broke down and cried on my back porch. It was not a pretty cry, in fact it was quite the ugly snot running down, just like a little kid kind of cry. Did I mention I'm a wee bit hormonal?
I wanted to do everything in my power not to bug the hubs again to fix it. I knew it would take him all of 2.5 seconds to fix and I certainly did not want to show him I was crying over a stupid weed eater. I also did not want to be defeated by some stupid over grown weeds. So I sat and cried for another 30 minutes, when hubs finally came out to ask if I ever got it started.
Like most guys he hates it when I cry and could not for the life of him understand why I was crying over the weed eater and why was it so hard for me to push that doohickey back in? I just couldn't bare to tell him that I am cursed with my dad's brown thumb.
He of course got it fixed in 2.5 seconds and after that it was flat out war on the weeds. I was a mad woman on a mission and I'm happy to say I'm victorious, at least for today.