Luau's, Showers, & Sears, oh my!

This was a great weekend in the SuperDad household. We kicked things off with my Aunt's annual Luau. It just wouldn't be the end of summer without it. This is where they invite everyone they know over to their house for some old-fashioned Hawaiian cuisine and festivities.

For example, there is the giant pink Flamingo... Each year, they stick a huge, inflatable Flamingo in their front yard to mark the event. Nothing shouts "Hawaii" like a giant, pink, inflatable Flamingo. Did I mention that it's huge?

Then there is the musical entertainment. This year they hired an accordian player. Nothing reminds me of the sunny beaches of Maui like a good accordian player. "Hey, do you know, 'Lady of Spain'?"

From there, we headed to a joint wedding shower for some friends of ours from church who are getting married in November. If you couldn't tell by now, this was one of those Saturdays where we didn't actually eat any meals, we just wolfed down chips, dip, and various other condiments throughout the course of the day, until we felt as though we were going to hurl.

There's nothing like a joint wedding shower. The women sit around and talk and open presents while the men watch football and throw beernuts at the poor sap taking the plunge. "Suuuure, she'll still let you watch football."

Sunday, though, was the really fun day. I decided that I would mow the lawn because, this summer, every three weeks just hasn't been fun enough. Luckily, it's been so damp, that I've been out there at least every other week, sometimes weekly. This time, it had just stopped raining the day before so the lawn had that nice, wet shimmer to it as it glistened in the sun that just shouted, "Go ahead...try and cut me."

I did. My lawn mower went up on me after I got through the first three rows. It kind of sounded like those old Mel Blanc cartoons where the car dies out...."Sputter, sputter, put, put, whirrrrrrr, CRUNCH!" Must have gotten some wet grass jammed under there, I thought. I flipped it over. Nothing. The blade won't even MOVE. Engine went up. Great.

My wife reminded me that we still had HER old lawn mower from her townhouse in the shed. There went my excuse. "Great idea, honey." I filled it up with just enough gas to test it out. It starts. It won't stop. I let go of the 'emergency release bar'. Still going (boom boom boom). No problem, I'll just mow until it runs out of gas.

I got half-way through the front yard before it ran out of gas. I filled it back up...and...dead. Won't start, won't turn, nothin'. Dead.

"Honey, I'll be back. I'm taking the minivan."

Off to Sears. Why, Sears? I truly have no idea. Whenever I have bought a lawnmower, I have gotten it from Sears. I think they only sell two things at Sears...men's slacks and lawn mowers.

I finally walked away with a brand-new, Craftsman, 6 horsepower mower, with a Briggs & Stratton engine. Cue Tim Allen manly grunt.

This whole ordeal turned out to be a blessing in disguise. You see, my OLD mower would go about 4 feet through the thickest part of the grass and then turn to me and say, "You want me to do what??" before stalling out. This was repeated about 25 times throughout the course of mowing the lawn.

This NEW mower tore through the grass like Katie making a break from Tom. I don't bag so grass was flying everywhere. It was like a big party in the back yard with green confetti falling as I answered the $1 million question. What made it even better was doing this with my headphones on, listening to the Raven whoop the hapless Raiders (by the way, how do the purple birds constantly make winning look so scary?).

So here I sit, battered, bruised, stiff, sore, and wishing I hadn't eaten that last Hawaiian hamburger.