About two and a half years ago, I put up a blog post about buying a new lawnmower. I had the old one for over eighteen years and did essentially no maintenance and yet, it continued to run until it didn't. So I bought a new mower. If you look back at the old post, you'll see a picture of the old mower next to my new one.
Well, the new mower didn't last nearly so long as the last one. On Monday, while mowing the lawn, I hit a low lying tree stump and completely stopped the mower. Hmmm? So I started it back up and it was making a rubbing sound like the blade was hitting the deck. If I held it just right the sound went away and if I held it just wrong, it made a lot of scraping noise. So I finished the front yard with the occasional odd noise and started on the back. As I went across the back yard, the mower hit a root hard enough to stop again. Hmmm? That shouldn't have happened. So I started again and then I hit a root that was lower than the grass and this time I bent the crap out of the blade. As I dragged the lawn mower toward the garage, the blade was digging into the dirt. On close inspection, it appears that the first collision with the stump had actually warped the deck or tore the engine loose from the deck and the blade was actually at a rather bad tilt. I surveyed the damage and saw that the motor was no longer firmly attached to the deck. It was ruined. Maybe the motor is still good, but the lawnmower as a unit is toast.
What to do? Get it fixed or buy a new one. I decided to buy a new one just like the old one. So I looked on the Sears web site and found that same old mower for $159.98. Unfortunately, they didn't have one in stock at the Southpoint Mall Sears but they did have two in stock at Northgate Mall. Since Northgate mall is a bit further away, my wife suggested that I pick one up on the way home from work.
The next day I checked on the web to see if they were still in stock at Northgate and the web site said no. But they said that you should check the store just in case they were wrong. So I called and after the usual horror of phoning a company and going through their series of robots, I got a human who obviously looked up my question on Sear's web site, just like I did. I asked him if that was what he did and he said yes so he transferred me to the Sears store itself where I got an answering machine. The heck with that.
So I just left work and decided to go to the store and see for myself. When I got there, they told me that the model I was looking for was discontinued and the price was a closeout price and they wouldn't get anymore in. It's odd that on the exact day that I want to buy a mower, the previous day they sold the last mower of a line they've been selling for more than 20 years.
So I asked about the next model up at $179.99. There were a couple of guys waiting that also wanted that model. The sales guy said they only had one in stock, but would get a new shipment tomorrow. I said I couldn't come the next day, but maybe later in the week. The other guys said they would drop by tomorrow and get one. I thanked them. So the sales guy goes into the back and comes out and said that, no, he was wrong and they don't have anymore of that model either. OK, so what about the next model up at $199.99? Yes, they seem to have that one. And unlike the bland grey and black mowers of the past, this one is fire engine red.
When I said salesman earlier, I actually meant three salesmen. There were about 4 or 5 customers with questions about lawnmowers and three different salesmen were dealing with all of us simultaneously. There was one who seemed to be the most knowledgeable, one who kinda knew what was going on and one who might have been a trainee. So the middle guy goes back into the back and checks and, yes, they do have that one in stock. So I go through the check out process and he sends me around to the back to pick it up. I scan the receipt and after a while a guy comes out with the lawn mower in a beat up box. There is another guy waiting for a pickup and the guy with my lawnmower tells him that, as it turns out, the item he just purchased is not in stock after all. So he needs to go back to the sales guy and cancel the purchase.
Sears was bought a few years ago by some super rich business guy who also owns K-mart and is slowly destroying the company by starving it for cash. I think he's taking all the money home for himself. It's kind of sad to watch. I'm not sure how this works, but I suspect these types of financial shenanigans are a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.
Anyhow, I took the mower home and followed the 5-step instructions (raise handle, tighten a couple of bolts, add oil, add gas) to get it ready. I drug out the old mower for a picture and then cranked the new mower. It quickly roared to life. It seemed a lot quieter and smoother than the last mower and didn't shake as much. Right now I'm thinking that maybe the extra $40 was worth it. My wife, who thought maybe Sears had bait and switched me up a couple of models, did like the red color. I finished off the yard.
So there. Hopefully I won't have to write about mowers for another 18 years.
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