Here’s a picture of my snowblower. I want to say “our (as in both Annette and I) snowblower,” but she takes now ownership in such things. And perhaps with good reason. I bought it last summer at a yard sale for $30 or $40. The guy I bought it from (who frankly needed the money) got it to start and run for a few minutes, but when I tried it again in October or so, nothing.
So I took it down to a place in Ypsi. But when I took it down there about a month ago, we still had a minivan, and as loyal readers know, we ain’t got no minivan no more. So, to get this thing back from the hardware store/small engine repair place, I first had to rent a pickup truck (which was fine because we needed something like that to get the Christmas tree stuff back home and because driving around a pickup truck perked up my manliness). That didn’t cost that much because the auto insurance is paying for up to $25 a day for a rental car, and we had to pay the $10 difference.
Then I needed a ramp to get the thing in and out of the truck– there’s no way that Annette and I could lift this monster up. So I bought a piece of unfinished plywood for $20. And then, I of course had to pay for the repairs, which cost $95 because they essentially rebuilt the carburetor and replaced a bunch of broken parts.
The “priceless” part of all this was getting it home. My plywood ramp, which worked brilliantly at the hardware store/small engine parking lot, slipped out from under me when I tried to use it at home in the driveway. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to not seriously injure myself and destroy the newly repaired/old hunk-o-junk snowblower, but the board slipped completely off the bed of the pickup, I fell, and the snowblower stayed up on the tailgate door with a few inches to spare.
But hey, it’s a happy ending, so far. Like I said, I wasn’t hurt, the snowblower didn’t fall, I did ultimately manage to get the ramp system to work, and the newly tuned and nearly bulletproof machine cranks up and works like a charm.
Now we just need snow, and a lot of it.