Would you have a spare Aston Martin by chance?

Let me tell you the story of how I bought my Snapper self propelled electric start lawnmower. This will go down as one of the great stories in my family history. OK, maybe not great, just amusing. Well...to me at least.

When the weather finally warmed up about four months ago I went out to procure my first lawnmower. Jesus, I'm a homeowner. Anyway I had seen a used one for sale at a second hand store down on Parsons Avenue for 40 bucks. And this wasn't anything fancy, just a regular lawnmower with a pull rope start. No self propelled option or electric start. But it was good enough so I walked down to the store one Monday morning to get it. Upon my arrival I found that the store was only open on Fridays and Saturdays. I'm now officially annoyed. So I took off down Parsons to the South Side Cycle And Mower shop secure in the knowledge that they would have plenty of used ones to pick from. One of the mechanics there gave me the bad news that they had just run out of used mowers. Now I was really pissed off at myself. If I had acted sooner instead of waiting I wouldn't need it so badly. My lawn was a hayfield approaching critical mass and I wanted to get the damn thing done.

So I walked out of the mower shop completely dejected and annoyed to make the 2/3rds of a mile trudge back to my house. A couple of blocks down I noticed a guy standing outside his home in the nearby courtyard. He was dressed in overalls, looked around 60 years old and seemed to have quite a few garden tools there with him in his courtyard. I crossed the street but he had made eye contact with me well before I started to approach him. I walked up to the brick wall around the courtyard and I said hello and then proceeded to ask (out of the blue) if he had a lawnmower he could sell me. Without hesitation he said "Sure, right over here". I followed him feeling somewhat elated that I had just asked a total stranger on the street whether they had this arcane item that I needed so badly. I found out that this good fellow's name was Virgil and he indeed did have a lawnmower he could sell me. We brought the mower outside and he started it up, it worked perfectly. To make a long story short 50 bucks passed between us and I walked home pushing my newly acquired lawnmower.

The lesson here is...ask and ye shall receive. The next time I'm on the street I want to ask a total stranger if they have a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 they could sell me for 500 bucks. Hey, it could happen.