I Have the Utmost Respect for the Guy Who Mowed His Lawn in a Tornado
Source – A tornado made landfall in Canada on Friday, but one man decided that a tornado was not going to stop him from mowing the lawn.
Theunis Wessels, of Alberta, was cutting the grass in his backyard with the tornado in the background. …
The photo quickly went viral on Twitter, gaining over 1,000 retweets. …
Theunis said that the storm was further away than it looked in the photo and it was moving in the opposite direction from them.
“It looks much closer if you look in the photo, but it was really far away. Well, not really far, far away, but it was far away from us,” he said.
Still, Theunis said he was watching the storm closely as it formed a funnel cloud.
“I was keeping an eye on it,” Theunis said.
Theunis Wessels might feel the need to explain himself to the millions around the world who think he did something remarkable here, but it needs no explanation from where I’m standing. This is a man after my own heart. If you don’t get why a man would do yard work with a massive column of spinning, windy, low pressure death bearing down on him, it says more about you than it does about him. It says you don’t have a lawn. Not a nice one, anyway. Not one you care about. And I feel sorry you’re leading a sad, inconsequential life.
I have a confession to make. My name is Jerry, and I’m a Lawnaholic. You know how Portnoy said he likes little life-affirming quotes? Compared to my secret shame his looks like he deserves a Kennedy Center Honor. I’m obsessed with having a nice lawn. I do the 5-step annual weed-and-feed treatments. Cut it regularly. Try to make patterns in it with the mower. As in, as long as it looks good, nothing can bother me. If it doesn’t, I’m incapable of being truly happy.
I didn’t think I’d ever be this way either. I had a neighbor growing up who literally used to get down on his hands and knees with a pair off scissors to trim down blades of grass that were growing faster than the others like he was trimming hair. I thought he belonged in an institution. And swore I’d never be a slave to my yard. But I am. And while I’m not that bad, I can absolute relate to my Canuck buddy Theunis. If a twister was bearing down on me but it just happened to be coming on the last day I could mow without having to use the bag, or if the grass was just wet enough that I could get that awesome criss-cross pattern going like the grounds crew at Fenway does, you can be damned certain I’m putting my life on the line for that. A brave man dies but once. Someone with a shitty, weedy, uncut lawn dies a thousand deaths every day from April to about mid-October.
So keep doing you, Theunis Wessels. You’ve made a fan out of me. And as your biggest admirer, I suggest you get the trimmer out and do along the bottom of that fence.