(With apologies to 'Lucidly Laconic')

  I have a beloved and very politically incorrect lawnmower. A “two stroke’ Lawn Boy that is the bane of both the EPA and the AQMD. (Those familiar with 2-stroke engine genus understand). 12 years of faithful service and it recently began to get finicky. I took it to a rather large and presumed respected repair/sales facility to have a much over-due tune up done and while there I asked if they could replace the well worn drive belt that powers the self propelled feature of the mower.  Two weeks pass and I receive a call saying that "to replace the “belt” would cost the better part of a new mower". I visit the facility a few days later to talk with the mechanic. He shows me the problem at hand while the rest of the personnel are saying to chuck the machine and simply purchase a new one. I ask if there is anything seriously wrong with the engine preventing a reasonable repair bill and the mechanic said NO. I asked what the charge would be to simply tune the mower and return it to me. The estimate was nominal and I kindly asked him to repair and tune the engine and forget the “belt” issue altogether.  I received a call yesterday that my mower was ready. I went to the shop to pick it up and saw the mechanic and thanked him for “saving my politically incorrect, hydrocarbon spewing heirloom from an all to early grave.” He said “fine…if you enjoy PUSHING a lawn mower” I replied “Push?”  He said “Yes ; I cut the old drive belt off since it was worn out”  Incredulous at his arrogant presumption I replied “ It was still working when I brought it here I only asked you to replace it originally as an afterthought since you were going to have it on your bench anyway. You could have just put it back together seeing it wasn’t removing or replacing it on the transmission housing that was the problem. Now I have a $85.00 repair bill for a mower that you have effectively disabled from practical use. They attempted a war of words with me however quickly conceded by offering me my semi-repaired, willfully sabotaged mower back at no cost. So now I have a great running 2-stroke mower complete with the governor adjusted to give me even more RPMs and power but no self-propulsion system in which to make the mower feasibly usable.
  For those of you who herald the fact that my EPA - AQMD scorned mower is quasi useless to me; know that I plan to let it run simultaneously(with an extra rich mixture to boot) while I mow my lawn with the new self propelled mower purchased at Sears today. Overtly or covertly I will not be engineered to conform by the “Tree huggers”.

   FR.