Cabin Memories (Alternate Title: Random Drunk Story Number 1)

This weekend I'm heading up to the cabin in search of relaxation and fun. In honor of this event I have decided to repost one of my most embarrassing/drunk/dangerous moments that took place at the cabin Labor Day of 2004. Enjoy!

Riding Lawnmowers and Beer; A Really Bad Idea. (Posted May of 2005)

Have you ever realized that your best ideas come to surface when you've been drinking? Such an idea surfaced last Labor Day while at my friend's parents cabin for the weekend.

We decided to clean out the shed (which is actually really cool with screened windows and wooden screened door), and turn it into the "Ultimate Tiki Bar." In order to do so we had to remove the two riding lawnmowers and park them next to the garage where the other riding lawnmower resides. So, after the tiki bar was established and more drinks were consumed someone mentioned how cool it would be if we were to have lawnmower races. At the time I thought it was most probably the best idea I have ever heard. At least the best idea since about 5 minutes earlier when we did the whole put your head on the baseball bat thing and spin around ten times and then run. Which Josh did and ran smack dab into the side of the tiki bar...Ouch, but still, I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

So the lawnmower races ensued, there was a track, and finish line, and I even started the race standing between two of the lawnmowers in a dramatic rendition of Cha Cha's race starting moves in the movie Greece. The races went off without a hitch and the real drama didn't begin until Chrissy and I decided to take two of the lawnmowers down to the store to get ice.

To set the scene, their driveway down to the cabin is really long and the total trip to the store and back is just under a half a mile each way. Usually, the road is empty, however since it was Labor Day the resort next door was packed from the "turtle races" and there were cars lined all the way down the road on one side. I was on the older lawnmower and watched as Chrissy's step dad Pat started it for me. He lifted the hood and pulled the cord and it just started, that's all I saw. All he said was that the rabbit makes it go faster and the turtle slows it down. Simple right? Wrong.

We made it up the driveway and Chrissy was ahead of me, naturally I wanted to go faster, because fast is a good idea on a riding lawnmower when you've been drinking. I was messing with some levers and ended up stalling it. Chrissy kept going while turning around to see what I was doing. After watching Pat start it I flipped up the hood and pulled the cord. Nothing. Pulled it again. Nothing. This time I took all my energy and violently pulled the cord and watched in awe as the lawnmower sped across the road and slammed itself into the tire of a 4 door sedan of which I refuse to name for legal reasons. It was at that point I realized that I forgot to put the mower into neutral.

Chrissy turns around to see me run across the road and try to pull the girating lawnmower off the vehicle as it is viciously ramming itself over and over again into the side of the car and caught under the body above the wheel. Laughing hysterically with tears in her eyes she managed to come over and assist in turning off the lawnmower while we both pulled it off the car in front of us.

Surprisingly, there was no damage to the car. If the mower would have been a little to the left, or a little to the right we would have been screwed. Plus, no one was around to witness the disaster and except for a few scratches under the wheel rim on the backside of the body everything was fine, except for the lawnmower, which had definitely seen better days. The hood was brutally dented in and we were unable to latch it, not to mention I was in shock and my mind was going a mile a minute to try and think of a story to cover our tracks.

We quickly assesd the situation, and decided that there needed to be a cover. There was no WAY we were going to tell ANYONE that I had just caused the lawnmower to crash into someones car and then leave the scene of the accident. So we lied.

While driving back down to the cabin we thought up a story to tell everyone that I had hit a tree. As we arrived, we were ironically showered by our friend Ian who ran towards us shaking up two cans of beer and spraying us with them...shotgun style. We were able to coax him into bending the hood of the lawnmower back to its original (sort of) state and explain what happened only to the tree, not the car.

Later that night while sitting in the tiki bar the truth came out and everyone learned what had happened. I was really embarrassed, but now thinking back it makes me laugh. Hysterically.

So here's to riding lawnmowers and alcohol, only one of many of my really bad ideas