Tuned for performance

By Jack Elliott
Correspondent

Carrying on with last week’s gardening focus, Pickle and the Runt finally decided it was time to rectify the lack of performance exhibited by the Runt’s tiller over the past two years. The tiller was so underpowered the Runt had sworn off gardening, but with retirement hard upon him he reconsidered and is planting potatoes as a hedge against starvation and housework. Sweetness is not planning to retire for several more years, figuring after decades of the Runt’s weird shifts and most of their married life separated by their work habits, that easing into intense togetherness might be the wiser choice.
“I just can’t figure it out. As soon as you lower it into the soil, the tines stop turning,” pondered the Runt as he prepared to trowel a layer of peanut butter on his double order of toast.
The crew at the debating table at the Bakery in Drizzle Creek instantly began to spew advice.
“The thing is,” began Ike, long time official town tinkerer, recently retired.
“The thing is,” he began again, “It could be a loose belt a sheared key in the drive pulley, or the worm gear or a bearing or a combination of any of them. What do you see when do get down and look under the tiller?”
“Bend over? Get down? On the ground?” questioned the Runt, appalled at the thought of subjecting his physique to such torture.
“Not enough rpms on the engine,” I suggested my own past experience at super-tuning tillers, legendary.
“Enough! We’ll load er up and haul ‘er over to my clinic for a complete physical, “ stated Pickle, Drizzle Creek’s own answer to Doctor Goodwrench.
“I could maybe come along and observe,” I suggested sensing a much more interesting afternoon than my wife, the Pearl of the Orient had planned for me cleaning curtains and blinds (but that’s another tale).
“You never mind. Just stay away. The accuracy of your reporting leaves something to be desired,” cut back Pickle as he pushed back from the table, ready to depart, but then realizing he had not put in the required full hour coffee break, settled back into his chair and held out his cup for a 5th refill.
So I am forced by circumstance to rely on the reports of usually reliable sources to relate what happened later that day. I cannot be held accountable for the accuracy of his account. After all Moose tends to be a little addled some days.
The problem was diagnosed as an improper belt that would not tighten properly when the drive lever was engaged. The Runt was going to buy a new one, but Pickle nearly fainted at the suggestion of such extravagance and managed to find a suitable replacement in his stock of spares scavenged from the dump.
“She’s a little snug, but it will soon stretch into place,” reasoned Pickle as with a pry bar and a wrench he managed to spin in onto the pulleys.
Next a newly reconditioned spark plug, plus a wire to ream out the carburetor jets- more power-, and the tightening down of the governor spring- even more power- completed the “total reconditioning”.
“ I’ll install a kill switch later. She should really sling dirt now. Let’s try ‘er out in my garden,” reasoned Pickle seeing an opportunity to economize on his own tillage needs.
“We’ll just give her a sniff from the “Ether Bunny”, now you give the starter cord a pull and we’ll fire ‘er up,” Pickle instructed the Runt.
A half-hearted pull on the starter cord resulted in a couple of ‘jumps’ as the motor and the tines tried to turn.
“Here, I’ll tip the tines up in the air. You put some beef into that starter cord,” chided Pickle.
The Runt took a deep breath, and gave a yank with enough force to move a loaded boxcar. The motor and tines spun. The cord reaching its full extension, snapped, slipped out of the Runt’s hand, and sailed over the fence onto Dot’s porch. Dot was out enjoying a smoke and assumed the flying cord might be a snake, so she immediately beat it to death with a shovel. (But again that’s a story for another day)
The engine caught, igniting the cloud of ether and gasoline fumes now filling Pickle’s shop. The resulting minor explosion knocked out 3 windows and singed both Pickle and the Runt like a couple of plucked hens.
With the engine hitting ear-piercing revs, Pickle gripping the handles, dropped the tines into the dirt to slow things up a bit. The ‘new’ belt refused to slip, and in a spray of super tilled soil, Pickle and the tiller shot across the garden, into the alley, and headed straight for the river.
Not sure what happened from there, but it is reported Ike was over to the Runt’s with his new tractor and tiller, preparing a proper garden. And Pickle says no matter: the warranty on the job has expired.