Craigslist

We have had a pretty good relationship with our local Craigslist. During our year on the 'compact' I managed to find such things as a dishwasher, legos, and other assorted gifts. I always stick to the St. Paul items and won't be tempted into driving to Minneota for a 5-pack of used dishclothes. Won't do it. I do have standards. So when I found a cordless electric mower just a few blocks from home, I bit. I think it had something to do with the fact that the dandelions were towering above Theo's knees and our push mower was just daintily bending them over when I ['mowed'. I was at the end of my dandelion rope. This is NOT a good place from which to make a purchase. I sent Jon out to check it out and he came back with concerns about the battery. He researched a bit and found a place where you could order a new one. So we did and I went to go pick up the mower. As I rolled it from the garage to my waiting car I did notice that it looked a little sad and old, a little wobbly, but I handed over the $49 and drove away. I unloaded it right in front of the meanest patch of dandelions and turned it on. It certainly did not 'roar' to life, but this is why we were buying electric in the first place, right? We didn't want to wake up the neighborhood nappers each time we mowed..... Turns out that the thing should have been emitting more than the lowest whimper. It did at least bend the dandelions over with a bit more force than our old mower. They stayed at half mast for almost half a day! But the next morning there they were again in all their glory. I was going to have to await the battle until the new battery arrived. It did. We got it in, the mower roared (in a small cat type of way- say panther, not lion) to life and away I went, casting dandelion heads to the wind with my powerful new implement of destruction. Until I turned around to come back the other way and the back wheel plopped right off. For about 10 minutes I did this interesting little mowing dance....I put the wheel back on and started out, eyes only on the wheel....it would start to wobble to the end of the axel and my left foot would dart out and kick it back on, where it would stay for 2-3 strides...kick....stride....kick. I know that our neighbor across the street, Don, with the golf green lawn, was inside his house howling with laughter, or tears (he does, afterall, annually construct a little alter to his fertilizing technigues and puts it up at the curb- subtle).
After about 10 minutes of this dance I let the wheel drop off without kicking it back on and instead booted it into the sidewalk and went about my mowing with a three-wheeled contraption. It works. Not well.
The saga is not ended there.... Jon spent at least 35 minutes and 3 trips to the hardware store this past weekend in an attempt to reattach the errant wheel. It worked and I took off mowing. One stripe later I was back to the tricylce version of our mower. Now we have enlisted Rodg and he thinks he has the solution. We'll see.
The moral of this story is to always try to bring down the cost on craigslist. I would feel so much better about this whole mower incident if I had 'gotten the best' of the sellers by only offering, say, $45, instead of paying their asking price of $49. That would have gotten them! and I wouldn't feel like such an idiot as I mow my lawn with a three-wheeled rust bucket that has a new $150 battery inside it. I gotta go, I'm cruising craigslist for a 'new' bike for Eli.