The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories by McManus Patrick F

Author:McManus, Patrick F.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

A Chainsaw Kind of Guy

B

arney Wapshot’s wife gave him a chainsaw for Christmas. I was furious. Barney is not a chainsaw kind of guy. It’s unlikely he will ever use it to make chainsaw comments to guys at his golf club: “I was going to crank up my chainsaw the other day and cut down a few trees, but then some guests showed up for drinks and hors d’oeuvres by the pool.” I hate that sort of pretense, particularly in a guy whose wife gave him the chainsaw in the first place. If you’re a real chainsaw kind of guy, you go out and buy your own.

Whatever on earth prompted Winnie, that’s his wife, to give Barney a chainsaw, I don’t know. Maybe she was sending him a message like, “I wish you were more like Pat—he’s a chainsaw kind of guy.”

Or maybe Winnie was thinking about the economy. Anytime the economy goes to heck in a handbasket, people start thinking about chainsaws, and how they could go out in a national forest and cut enough firewood to last through the winter: “At least we’ll be warm, even if we have to huddle around the fireplace.”

Winnie would certainly be right if she thought I was a chainsaw kind of guy. In fact, I have two chainsaws. Three, if I count the electric. The electric’s OK for trimming limbs around the house, but totally useless for cutting firewood out in a national forest, unless you have an awfully long extension cord. Besides that, it makes only a wimpy little sound rather than a decent roar.

The other two saws are gas models, but one of them is broken. Actually, it may not be broken, because I took it apart and repaired it myself. On the other hand, you don’t want a chainsaw to explode on you. Those saw teeth flying all over the place can really hurt, particularly if you’re not a chainsaw kind of guy.

What happened was that my chainsaw was spewing gas all over the place, which alerted me to the possibility that something might be wrong. I should point out here that no chainsaw kind of guy ever wants to take his saw into a chainsaw repair shot, except as a last resort. First, he tries to fix it himself.

WARNING: Do not try to repair your chainsaw yourself, unless you are familiar with gas engines and sharp instruments flying about, and know what you are doing.

The problem with my chainsaw, I quickly deduced, was that the little plastic hose that runs from the gas tank to the thingamajig had come loose. Right away, I guessed that this was the reason the saw was spewing gas all over the place. I slipped the hose back on the doohickey and fastened it down with a glob of acrylic something-or-other I’ve had on a shelf in the garage aging for the past nine years. So far, I haven’t worked up the nerve to pull the starter cord, but sooner or later one of my sons-in-law will be over, and I’ll be able to give him a little experience with a chainsaw.

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