THE APPROACH OF THE WEEDWHACKERS

I swear I knew beforehand that this Sunday morning from 8 to 10 am we were having the community work session, which we have a couple times a year, weather permitting, when everyone from the village - which includes all the way up here - comes out with their own tools and donates two hours of work clearing the roadsides of weeds etc., and since Echo is visiting family up north I would be soloing this time and its been a while since I took part in one of these, so I was gonna be out there with my weedwhacker and bells on even before 8 am, start on my assigned section of the roadside just below my house as the folks from down below worked up toward me. I usually get up around 6 so no problem...

Then this morning in the deeps of pleasant dreams I heard the distant sound of approaching weedwhackers and sat bolt upright, saw that it was 8:20 am and by 8:21 am I was out of the house opening the toolshed, fortunately having taken a few seconds to dress along the way so I was pretty much in my work clothes, took the weedwhacker out of the toolshed to the growing sound of approaching weedwhackers and discovered what I had already known: that the whacker had no whackstring in it.

So having had no coffee I tried for a few small eternities to wind the grudgy plastic cord around the spool as the sound of the weedwhackers grew louder, dozens of busy and dutiful participants approaching the section where I was to be doing my part for the community, a concept so deep in the J-psyche. As I of other psyche struggled with the springy string, somehow in my coffeeless state I realized that all the approaching whackers were dealing with the bamboo etc. that grew along the roadsides, not grassy weeds such as I generally deal with around my house, so they had the big-toothed blades on their whackers, not wimpy plastic string...

So I rummaged in the toolshed for my blade and then for a wrench to remove the plastic string fitting from the whacker, but remembered that I have to use a special wrench to do that, what else is new, and that that wrench was in the big tool box over by the kitchen window so I went over there and did some deep rummaging, at last reached the wrench and brought it to the surface, grabbed the debris mask and the 2-cycle engine fuel and went out front as the roar of the approaching whackers grew deafening, and me without coffee...

So now, after two or three previous failed tries at stringing the whacker, here I was at blade time at least out front with the wrench etc., so I started to take off the string fitting and put on the blade, knowing deep in my heart that the fastening bolt loosens clockwise and tightens counterclockwise, but in the growing roar of the approaching whackers and the depths of no coffee while teetering on the knife edge of no time I forgot and tried to tighten clockwise with the wrench and the bolt fell off, also the washer fell off, the metal holder fell off, and that other round metal thingy fell off, then the blade fell off, onto the stone/pebbles/grass/shrubbery of the driveway so I put the whacker down and amidst the throbbing roar of imminent whackers began searching for a washer amidst gravel in a life without coffee...

I searched as well for the bolt and the metal fittings, I searched for the round metal thingy that had rolled away down the driveway where I finally found it near the gutter, the washer had fallen straight down so I had that, then the other metal holder I found at last way under the car, so all I needed now in the deafening roar of the converging whackers was the bolt, the key to it all; I looked everywhere, everywhere in that roar for the bolt but could not find it, until just as one of the village men began working on my assigned section I lifted my left boot from the pebbles and there in my footprint was the bolt, I put it and the blade etc. on and set forth, starting my weed whacker as I went, ready to shoulder my assigned task as part of the roar of the weedwhackers but the motor wouldn't start, so the machine and I wrestled on the ground there for a while until it said uncle with a bit of a cough and began to start, sort of, and by that time the weed whackers had already done my assigned part...

So having had no coffee I started on the part just above my property and began whacking the weeds there, sort of, the 'sort of' being because as soon as I started whacking I realized that the blade wasn't cutting, it was more like putting the weeds back into the ground, because I'd put it on backwards, then as I stood there watching the whirling blade, waiting for it to stop so I could take it off and put it on the right way round, a village lady came up to me from amidst the diminishing roar of the surrounding weedwhackers and said we're not doing that section, at which point it dawned on me like a descending meteor now three feet away from my face that from the start, meaning the big bang, I had not been meant to take part in this activity today. Funny I hadn't noticed.

That can happen when you haven't had your coffee.