These are my paint/yard-work pants with the drawstring at the waist. They have a story to tell. Once upon a time, I grew tired of sweeping the concrete surrounding the pool and bought a leaf blower. I’ve seen people efficiently wielding these machines many times and felt confident I could do the same. I purchased one at my local home improvement store and excitedly turned it on. It roared to life and I gleefully aimed it at the dirt and leaves. All went well for about three minutes before the thing turned on me and sucked up the string on my pants. I screamed, and my husband ran toward me. I turned off the machine and stood there, staring at the umbilical cord attaching me to a leaf blower.
For five minutes or more, my spouse and I, alternately, and together, tried to extricate the string, to no avail.
“I’ll have to cut the cord,” my husband said as he trotted to the house for a pair of scissors, leaving me pondering if I was viable for life on my own. He returned and severed me from the monster. Now, the only thing keeping me from returning to a normal relationship with the leaf-blower, was the string stuck inside it.
We pulled, twisted, and cajoled. Nothing worked.
“Guess we’ll have to take it back to the store and see what they can do,” my husband suggested.
“And tell them what happened?”
We approached the Customer Service window and told the story. From the non-reaction of the lady, you’d think people brought in leaf-blowers every day with pant strings in their innards. She suggested we exchange it for a new one, which we did.
I changed pants before I turned on the new machine. For ten glorious moments, it performed flawlessly. Then, it died. We tried everything except mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Back at the store, I asked for a refund and bought a new broom.