Finally.

After probably 6 total trips to Lowe's- four by me and two by my neighbor, Carl, my lawnmower is up and running and it no longer looks like my property has been abandoned.
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When I mowed the yard for the first time this spring, one of the belts on the mower broke. Sounds like an easy fix, right? Not so much.
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I had Carl take a look at it. The man can fix anything. If he can't, he knows someone who can. He's one of the kindest, sweetest men I know, and is more than willing to help me out whenever I need it. He tells me which belt I need to get. This mower has 3 belts. I go to Lowe's, and, to make a loooooong story short, came back with the wrong belt 4 different times, on different days. Carl's temper started to flair at the lawn guys at Lowe's. The way he put it, "They don't know beans from apple butter." I guess that's a nice way of saying "ass" and "hole in the ground."
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Carl makes it his personal crusade to go to Lowe's himself and get the right belt. He said he was going to "go up there and shake them up a little bit," going on and on about how "if they're going to sell that brand, then they need to be able to supply the right parts for it." I was at my wit's end, too, even though I hated for him to have to do it. He assured me that he would take care of it after he dropped his wife off at bowling, and that it wasn't a special trip into Columbia.
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He came home with a belt on Tuesday and was pretty sure it was the right fit. It wasn't. Now he's madder than a hornet, in his own sweet way, when he calls and leaves a message on my phone at 7AM on Wednesday morning. He came knocking on the door at 7:30AM, wanting the old, broken belt, to take with him to Lowe's yesterday morning. Luckily I still had it.
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Smart man that he is, he had the wherewithal to arm himself with the model number of the mower deck and not just the model number from the "top" part of the mower, and off he went to Lowe's AGAIN yesterday morning.
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It turns out that the mower is made with a 2004 deck and a 2005 engine. What the hell?? That's why we/they had so much trouble getting it right.
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Last night at about 6PM, I hear my mower come roaring up the driveway. It's fixed. He got the right belt. I'm saving the package it came in, so I know what to get if/when it happens again. I might even put it in a frame on the garage wall.
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That Carl.....not only did he make two trips to Lowe's and replace the belt, he also changed the oil and sharpened the blades. It runs like a brand new mower. I don't have ghetto yard anymore.
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I pulled Lena, his wife, aside and told her I wanted to get Carl a restaurant gift card-where did he like to eat? She said Jimmy's Steak House or IHop. "He's not an expensive eater," she said.
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That is on my list of things to do while Mia is at dance tonight....get a nice card and a gift card, thanking my AWESOME neighbors for their help.