Whack Job

Let’s just say that you’ve got a 500 ft fence line that needs tidying up. You’d want a tool that was up to the task wouldn’t you? Now let’s say you’re a sick and perverted industrial designer working for whatever fucked up company makes the WeedWacker. You can tell I’m warming up to a serious rant can’t you? This person needs to die by the device he or she so cruelly devised.
Let me share the step by step torture one goes through when using – correction – when trying to use the… god! I can’t even speak the name of this P.O.S. from HELL! OK, I’m better now... where was I?
It has an engine. A smelly little 2 stroke that burns a gas/oil mixture, which no matter how carefully you mix the petrol cocktail, the tiny beast smokes like a chimney and emits enough exhaust to permeate your clothing so you carry the memory of your misfortune around for days.
Now, if you’ve ever used a weed trimmer you know that the head, which is a spinning spool containing the cutting filament, determines the difference between getting the job done, and homicidal behavior. How can this part, this one piece, insite such irrational and destructive thoughts? It could only have been designed by a person abused as a child, or perhaps Satan seeking revenge on those that for God knows what reason, feel the need to tidy up. I prefer the wilder side of our property, but mowing (another post to come) and trimming, give one the illusion of control.
Once you’ve got the thing fired up and spinning one proceeds to the inevitable “whacking” of grassy things. There is a 3 minute span of time where the novice whacker experiences the bliss of whirling and flying grass particles hitting them in the face… and then the line snaps off. “A gentle tap of the head will release the necessary length of line for continued cutting”, says the manual. Tap… tap, tap… tap, tap, tap… whack! You now begin to see Grasshopper, the wisdom and true meaning held within the word whack. It is not the weed that is whacked… but yourself.
But one doesn’t truly perceive the twisted (literally) demonic design of the head unit until one tries to free the tangled filament mess contained within and set the proper length of line. Too short and you don’t cut anything. Too long and the line wraps around the wand, choking the motor off as if it were being hanged by the neck. Hummmm?
A patient man endures this, and finds work-arounds to each hindrance along the way to tidiness. I had been that man, until the day when it was not the line that snapped, but my brain.
The hay farmer was coming that morning so I headed out to knock down the tall field grass around the gate so he could drive in more easily. I knew what was coming – fumes, endless futzing. What I didn’t know was the ultimate torture so cleverly built into this murderous machine was yet to come.
Within minutes of gnawing into the thick grass the head fell to pieces launching filament, plastic, and more importantly the main spring that makes the whole shebang work. The next thing I knew I was spinning in a circle like an Olympic shot putter launching that sorry piece of spent plastic and metal out into the field in a beautiful slow motion arc.
After rolling around in the grass in hysterics for a few minutes I regained my composure, retrieved the WeedWhacker and headed for the shed all the while thinking I would light it on fire a la Jimi Hendrix and his guitar. It has since been relegated to a dusty corner of the shed as I could never give it to the Goodwill or put it in a garage sale and inflict that kind of pain on another human being. I believe in yard karma.
I am now the proud owner of a Stihl FS 90 R. And as much as anyone can find enjoyment from tools with small engines attached to them, this has been the antidote to the misery endured for way too long. I still get kind of twitchy when it’s time to do some whacking though. I guess some diseases you never fully recover from.