I Am an Idiot

I rolled my riding lawn mower out of the garage today and decided to actually change the oil, oil filter, and spark plug before using it. I bought all of these items last year but I never did the maintenance. Anyway, I drained the oil, changed the oil filter and spark plug, and added the new oil. A part of me thought, "Is that too much oil? Nah. It'll be fine." I couldn't have been more wrong.

I casually put the key into the ignition and turned. Since I had not started it all winter, I had to use the choke. No big deal. However, when the engine roared into action, white smoke started to billow out of the front. At first I thought it was just burning off excess oil. Then I noticed that the garage (which was wide open and which the mower was facing) was completely filled with smoke. Still, I assumed that the smoke would die down. Finally, when I realized that I literally couldn't see anything except for the smoke, I shut the engine off.

I waved in vain at the smoke and walked around to the front of the lawn mower. I could see plainly where the oil was dripping from the manifold (at least that's what I think it's called) then I saw that oil had sprayed all over the floor of my garage and against the side my clothes dryer. Needless to say, I was extremely upset. At myself. And the worst part is that I'm fairly certain that I overfilled the engine with oil. How terribly idiotic.

Now for more evidence supporting my state of idiocy. I had to cut my grass using my old push mower. That's not the worst part. This lawn mower only has three wheels and has remained in this state of disability for the past 2 years. My rationalization behind this is that I only use it to mow my ditch (when the riding lawn mower is working) so why fix it? But, wait, that's not the worst part either. The worst part of it all is that the push mower does not start in the conventional way. Sure, it's a pull string but the string does not recoil back due to the fact that I ran over a brick with this poor machine about 2 years ago.

So how do I draw the string back? Well, initially I would abuse my fingers by painfully hand-winding the string back down into the compartment above the engine. Then, last year, it hit me: why waste all that time winding with my fingers when all I have to do is lift up the lawn mower and draw the string in by [gasp!] turning the actual blades with my right hand? I'm very aware of the danger this poses me, but I feel pretty confident. After all, I'm left handed and, as I stated above, I always maneuver the blades with my right hand. So, no need to worry, right?

The reason I posting all of this is to pose this question: Is this example of my combined carelessness, procastination, and sense of invincibility a metaphor for my whole life? There are so many times that I wait too long to do some important task (ask me about my car(s)) due to the fact that I consider actually doing said task to be much more inconvenient that whatever consequences await me when I do nothing at all. Then there's the sense of invincibilty thing... to be honest, that was for comic relief. I am very aware of my own mortality which begs the question: Why do I still insist on turning the blades of my lawn mower with a full tank of gas? Well, from this day forward, I will disconnect the spark plug wire when I do that. I promise. Baby steps...