The unthinkable has happened: I have fallen out of love. This is a tragedy, but inevitable, I suppose. If you spend enough time together, the fizz of infatuation is bound to go as flat as a possum under a truck.
Still, I can’t believe it has happened. There was a time when I never wanted her out of my sight, when I would daydream about her and rave on and on to anyone who would listen about how much I cared for her.
It was like this from the very moment I laid eyes on her in that Shop all those years ago. It wasn’t just her lovely lines that got me going, though her lovely lines certainly got me going. It was the way she moved, the sound she made, the way she loudly knew what she was about.
Without even taking her out, I knew she was the one for me. I had to have her, and, after a bit of haggling over her price, I did have her.
For most of the time since, life has been very heaven. We have spent hours and hours together here at Lush Places, enjoying each other as if we were the only two in the world. Now those days are gone. The terrible truth is I think I am no longer in love with my ride-on mower.
Our relationship hit the rocks two summers ago. It was beyond our control. You see, in most years in Wairarapa, one can almost forget about mowing over summer, as the big dry stops the grass growing. The same happens over winter, when the big cold sends the grass to sleep. That just leaves spring and autumn when you need to mow like a madman.
This acceptable arrangement came to an end the summer before last when the big dry never arrived, the rain did not stop and neither did the grass. It grew and grew.
The same happened this past summer, too, which means the mower and I haven’t spent much time out of each other’s company for the last two years. And as this warm, wet autumn drags on, it looks like it could be a while before we get any sort of break from each other.
Then it dawned on me: this wasn’t just about falling out of love. I realised if I didn’t do something about our relationship soon, it could end in messy divorce, or worse, in unmowed lawns.
I typed “how to spice up your marriage” into Google. Up came a list of eight things to try. The first was: “Recreate your favourite dates at home.” This I ignored, because that’s the problem. For the past six years, the ride-on and I have been having the same date over and over and over again.
I struck gold with the second suggestion: “Try role play.” According to the online relationship guru, “Everyone has fantasies and a little role play is a great way to escape the routine.”
She goes on to suggest sitting down with your partner and brainstorming some ideas, plus talking about boundaries. “Make an entire production out of it by doing things that you and your partner normally wouldn’t do.”
I didn’t bother with the brainstorming, I knew immediately what our spicy fantasy should be: we would pretend we were starring in a terrible, hokey, but also hugely popular, movie I’d finally got around to watching. Not Fifty Shades of Grey but Top Gun: Maverick.
This will be our fantasy: the mower will be a sexy F/A 18 fighter jet, and I will be sexy Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, aka Tom Cruise. Out there, under the vast blue sky and on the vast green lawns of Lush Places, we will again feel like the only two in the world as we mow down the faceless enemy, our only boundaries the herbaceous borders and the driveway.
