On being literal

[fbhjr]

I’ve always had trouble misunderstanding people because I think they mean
what they say.
For example:
When I was 4 my father got a new powered mower. It had a motor in it that
would pull it along for you as you walked behind it.
My father was proudly showing it to a neighbor while I looked on.
“This mower is great,” he said. “It will drive itself.”
That sounded like the best thing in the world to me. A mower that would
drive itself! Think of how useful that would be!
“Can I try?” I asked. I could just reach the controls at that age.
“Yes,” my father said, letting me take the handle. “This mower is so easy
to use; my four year old son can do it.”
I grabbed the throttle lever, and pushed it all the way forward.
“GO!” I shouted to it and gave it a push across the yard.
As my father continued to talk to the neighbor about how great it was, I
stood next to him and watched it power across the yard towards the
neighbor’s fence. I had no idea how it was going to sense it and make the
turn. But, I didn’t want to miss it.
Of course, it was not a robotic mower like they do have these days. It
only had a motor to pull it forward. So, it hit the fence, tilted up and
started chewing the fence post.
“Frank, your mower is eating my fence,” the neighbor said to my dad.
My dad looked up at the mower, then down at me. He let out a whoop (the
only one I ever witnessed in our lives together) and ran across the lawn to
get the mower. He got it off the fence and brought it back to where we
were.
“What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded of me.
“You said it would drive itself,” I said. “I wanted to see it do that. It
doesn’t do it very well.”
“It only pulls it forward,” he explained.
“Oh, how disappointing,” I said. I never got to use the mower. By the
time I was assigned that duty, I was given an old push mower to use.

But, my father never seemed all that mad at me about it. I think because
he once had a similar problem.
His father loved to fish. Although there was a river that ran less than ¼
mile from their house, there was a favorite fishing spot he had several
towns over. It was a bog where you had to have a boat to float out in the
middle. There was nowhere to get bait near there, so he had to bring it
with him.
When my father was about 4, his father brought him to the bog for fishing.
Now in 2008, a couple of towns over doesn’t sound too bad. This was 1919.
It took them a couple of hours to get where they were going. They left
early to get there while the fog was still over the water.
My grandfather got in the boat with my father and rowed out to the middle
of the water.
“Now we’ll catch the fish,” my grandfather told him. “We’ve got our
fishing poles, our can of worms and the rest of the morning to fish.”
“What are the worms for?” my father asked.
“They are to feed the fish,” my grandfather told me.
“Oh, I can do that part,” my father said. He took the can and dumped it
over the side.
“Why did you do that?” my grandfather demanded of my father.
“You said they were to feed the fish,” my father replied. “So, I put them
where the fish are.”

I never once saw my father fish. My mother’s brothers were both into it,
my uncle Jack particularly. He took me fishing a lot. My father, despite
many offers, never came.
One of the reasons I live in an apartment is so I don’t have to mow lawns.