Coming up with a title for this column is hard

I feel that I’m generally a fairly frugal person. Four years of living off of summer Coca-Cola money and whatever I could get working during the school year definitely solidified the money-saving lessons I had already learned and in a lot of ways I still spend as if I’m that poor college kid stretching what was essentially three months of income over twelve. In a lot of ways, it’s highly unnecessary, but old habits die hard I guess.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” is the general mentality; no need to upgrade something that is working perfectly fine as it is. That also seems to somewhat extend to purchasing new things in that, if the cheaper version works perfectly fine, there’s no need to get fancy.

So, when we moved into a house for the first time and we needed a lawn mower, basic seemed best. I wasn’t about to go back to a non-motorized reel mower (apparently they still make those) but the most basic push lawn mower would do perfectly fine. I had mowed hundreds of lawns, or maybe just a dozen lawns hundreds of times, with the standard push mower and they had always done the job well. Mikaela, having not really had that on her list of chores growing up, defaulted to my opinion on the matter, which usually isn’t the best idea in most circumstances. So I go to the store, check out their different options and decide that the default push mower is the best option; no need for any extra bells and whistles for hundreds of more dollars after all.

You know, one may not know what one has until it is gone, but one also does not know what one doesn’t have until they have it. Did that make sense? Probably not, but you’ll see what I’m getting at.

As I said earlier, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Well, the lawn mower broke, thus requiring a fix. But in the meantime, the lawn wasn’t going to stop growing, so I swung by my parents who generously lent me one of theirs for the time being.

“Take the red one,” my dad said. “The self-propelled one.” Self-propelled one? We never had a self-propelled one when I was mowing those lawns. I guess one upgrades when your labor force moves out of the house.

Anyway, I loaded up the lawn mower and brought it back home. I remembered looking at that option at the store and scoffing inwardly to myself. Nearly $200 more just for it to pull itself forward? Definitely not worth it.

I may have been incorrect on that assessment. I fired up the lawn mower, initially thinking I won’t even need to use the self-propelled part. I don’t need the assistance. Our lawn isn’t that big after all. Still, I guess my curiosity got the better of me. Might as well at least try it while I’ve got it, right?

The mower kicked forward as the front wheels started churning forward and it takes a little bit to adjust to the speed. Eh, it’s fine, I think to myself, but probably pretty annoying to turn off and on if you need to make sharp turns or pull backwards.

But as I continued, I realized that neither of those are really a problem at all; it’s not powerful enough to make turning difficult and one can very easily just let go of the handle if it’s necessary to stop the forward momentum. And while at first the benefits weren’t as apparent, it only took me halfway through the first section of our lawn to realize how much pushing was actually going on when using our regular mower.

The epiphany hit me like our ancient ancestors finally harnessing the power of the wheel. This was…so much easier. I sped through that section in record time and my back was much happier for it as well. I had no idea how much something so seemingly simple would actually help.

My brother Zach, who’s much smarter than me, is going to attempt to help me fix our broken mower (and by help I mean he’s probably doing most of it while I nod and offer my inane opinion on things before probably just going with whatever he suggests), which means my time with0 the self-propelled mower will be short and it’ll be back to the normal grind.

Obviously, I want our mower fixed. That would be by far the best outcome.

But, you know, if it doesn’t, well, I guess I wouldn’t have any other choice than to get a new one, right? And if I have to get a new one anyway, I might as well consider all the choices available. Reconsider the mental calculus that went into the previous purchase, given that there is new data to consider. And maybe those new variables tip the equation in favor of a self-propelled mower…who’s to say?

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW