Terry Prone: Lawnmower Man was the hero we needed in the departure lounge
When Lawnmower Man told us that the plane had now landed and was being cleaned up, that won him an ironic cheer.
Originally published in the Irish Examiner.
The guy behind me took a call from his teenage son. Decent privacy and respect on my part would cause me to stuff my fingers in my ears to prevent me from hearing the conversation.
I might even have done that if the conversation was boring, but it wasn’t. The son was consulting his dad about providing, for money, a lawn mowing service for a neighbour. His father mildly reminded him that concentrating on his schoolwork might be a worthwhile alternative priority, but didn’t push that. Instead, he did a neat cost/benefit tutorial.
What was the son proposing to charge the owner of the backyard involved? A small silence while the son responded. “OK”, the father said. “Are you happy with that?”
Another small silence — during which it seemed that the teenager indicated extreme happiness.
“How much gas would it take?”
The silences grew somewhat longer as the financial implications of what had seemed a simple win/win proposition sank into the lad at the other end of the call.
Then push came to shove with the father gently pointing out that the lawnmower belonged to him and that he’d be interested in the son’s proposals to make him — the father — agreeable to his machine being used somewhere other than on his own lawn.
Then the conversation moved on to how often, in a given week, the son would mow the lawn, and if that lawn was surrounded by other lawns which might represent a marketing opportunity.
Around about this point, the father announced that he was going to have to go.
However, he added that they’d talk some more about the project a little later. “Love ya,” he unexpectedly concluded.
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