Dear Toro:

I'm posting this here because the feedback form you supply won't allow me enough room to tell you just how much I loathe your company and specifically your lawn mowers.

You suck!  No, seriously!

About two years ago I purchased one of your self-propelled lawn mowers from a big package home improvement store because of the awe inspiring and confidence building lies you printed on the box.

• guaranteed to start
• Easy start
• Self-propelled
• comfortable handle
• mulches and bags

You neglected to further explain these features properly, therefore I will assist you in producing your new packaging so that future customers (I won't happen to be one of them) will truly see what a wonderful piece of crap you build in your factories.

Guaranteed to start - at least once, after that its a crap shoot depending on the temperature, humidity, amount of gas, and whether you hire a professional body builder to yank the cord.  Be ready to spend at least an hour alternating between ripping your arm out of its socket pulling the cord, and letting the gas fumes die down.  Don't be tempted to light a match near it during the fume phase... it'll be tough, but you can resist.

Easy Start - if you are use to starting a diesel train by pushing it down the tracks.  There is nothing easy about starting it, but you can pull the cord over and over all you want without a sputter.

Self-propelled: if you happen to live on a hill and you shove the thing down the hill.  The amazing front-wheel-drive will simply spin itself silly and go nowhere on an incline higher than 2 degrees, so be prepared to haul it back up the hill with a winch.

Comfortable handle - designed by the Marquis de Sade, this handle will not only cause cramping, but also cut into your flesh, especially when you squeeze the handle to self-propel it nowhere, and the handle to keep it running... IF you ever get it running.

Mulches and bags - unless you are trying to cut grass.  Its anti-clog feature clogs the instant it is introduced to grass or dew, and once its clogged, there's no starting it again.   To compliment the anti-clog feature, the bag will hold at least one leaf before it clogs and causes the lawn mower to die.

I don't think I've ever had a lawnmower as crappy as this one, and I've owned a lot of crappy lawn mowers.  I especially like the part where it'll start and run for about 10 minutes, die for no reason, then refuse to start for a week.  I don't know how you designed that, but its amazing.  

Local burning ordinances won't allow me to set it on fire in the middle of your factory parking lot, otherwise I'd be there with marshmallows.

Instead I'll be dragging it to the local landfill and throwing it in a dumpster.  For two years I've pulled the stupid cord, cursed it, beat it with a hammer, kicked it, threw it across the yard, threatened to shoot it, and now I will be disposing of it and buying ANYTHING but a Toro.

Good bye Toro.  The Free Market does work, and thankfully you are not alone in the manufacturing of lawn mowers... good luck with your Government bailout when the time comes because I will still refuse to purchase Governmentoro lawnmowers, and will instead simply set fire to my lawn full of leaves.

Bite me!

Staycation Day 3

Today I decided to mash it up and do something exciting, so I went scuba diving off the coast of Bermuda... ok, who am I fooling, I stayed home and ate pop-tarts.

I ran out of room to stack boxes because of all of the trash bags full of Lobsterman's heirlooms that I need to take to the dump (ok, its just empty boxes and papers and stuff), but the dump isn't open on Sundays, nor will it be open on Labor Day (what says Labor Day more than going to the dump?), so I had to abandon the purging of the back room and concentrated on cleaning the guest room (AKA: the place we throw crap when we're too lazy to throw it in the back room).

The Salvation Army is going to get the mother lode Tuesday (apparently the Army doesn't labor on Labor day either) as I purged the purse collection, clothes that I will NEVER fit into EVER again, and all of Lobsterman's clothes... ok, fine, I packed his stuff into one of those fabulous Ziploc tote things (and I'm still waiting for Ziploc to send me more of them for whoring out their wonderful Ziploc totes... the durable, versatile storage solution), and organized the whole room so we can finally close the closet door without fear of injury.

Then, I mowed the front yard.  By the way, NEVER buy a Toro lawnmower, specifically this Toro lawnmower... ok, seriously people, I did a google shopping search for Toro lawnmower and this is what it came up with:

I guess that even google knows that Toro lawnmowers are pieces of crap and will go nuts and puree someone's loved one, causing them to go mad and piece together their loved one and pimp them out or something.

Anyhoo, here's the piece of crap never to buy:

First of all, if the grass is even the tiniest bit high (I'm not talking like over your head, I'm talking like barely out of the ground), the damn thing clogs.  I'm pretty sure the purpose of a lawn mower is to cut grass, therefore it should be able to handle normal sized grass, but no.  Additionally, if the grass is even the slightest bit damp (dew, someone spit on the ground) it collects this big mound of grass poop and jams itself and dies.  If you attach the bagger thing, it seems to work better... in that it won't jam and poop out a wad of grass goo, but you have to dump the bag after every 2 steps because it won't throw the grass poop into the bag... just the neck of the bag, then dies.

I'm doing my best to kill the stupid thing by running over large branches, rocks, boulders... because I don't want to throw away a "perfectly good" (worthless) lawn mower, I want to sufficiently kill it first, then get a decent one.

I was going to do the weed whacking after that, but the battery on our whacker was dead, and so was the one that was charging... because the charger actually needs to be plugged in... go figure, so that'll wait for sometime during the week... when the battery is charged.

After a shower, it was off to Bass World for a new bug zapper (I know you are all thinking: you live such a glamorous life... be jealous).  My old zapper broke, and the mosquitoes were attacking because they knew I was defenseless, so I got two of them.  I'm a bit disappointed in these two because they don't make the mosquitoes pop and smoke like the old one. 

I went to Michaels for some artsy craftsy things that I'm doing for Lobsterman, but I'm not saying what because its a surprise for when he gets home.

I then went to Safeway because none of you pointed out that I was lacking calcium in my food diet selection... so I got a gallon of raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream.

I pretty much layed around reading or playing Angry Birds the rest of the night, except to chase Loki around the house when he got the zoomies, then off to bed... where Lobsterman (who is three hours behind) started texting me questions he could easily google himself, especially when he's asking someone who doesn't wear their glasses to bed and has no idea what the blurry text is saying.