"Nothing is so boring as listening to someone else describe a dream"
- George Carlin
(Carlin, George. "Brain Droppings". New York: Hyperion, 1997.)
I had a dream that I was mowing the front lawn of the house I grew up in. I started mowing a small section of the front of the huge front yard, then stopped. Then I realized that I wasn't done. I had only finished the section.
So I dragged the mower over the concrete of the driveway to the start of the much bigger section. Then pulled it over again for a different view and a different place to start. I pulled the rip cord a few times. It wouldn't start. I slowly pulled the cord out and took a closer look. Grass cuttings from last time were all clumped around the other end.
I pulled one more time, and the cord split at the far end, frayed off. As I stood there in my sweaty, dusty, dirt-covered outdoor clothes, I thought of what to do. I could try to fix the starter by tying the two snapped ends back together again, a big overhand knot. But then I thought about the much better starters I saw advertised somewhere which come up and attach to the handle, so that to start it you just keep squeezing a handle, like a bicycle brake handle, and after a few of those it starts without breaking your back. It was a way better long-term solution, but both being in those crappy clothes and wanting to get the job done made me hesitant to get in my car and get one.
I get the nagging feeling that this whole dream of me and my broken starter was symbolic.
Curiously enough, mowing the lawn was a chore I hated, but preferred mowing the front lawn to the back. Usually my brother did the front. The front was bigger, but no where nearly as dusty. And the lawn was more consistently grassy, so it didn't look like you were needlessly mowing nothing as you dragged the lawn mower over mostly bare parts of the back lawn.
