Frozen Isn't Always Cold

"Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning."

Yesterday morning while mowing my lawn, I chuckled to myself as I recalled mowing a lawn when I was twelve years old.

I had sung "Give Me Oil In My Lamp"  since I was a small child.  I had also seen oil lamps burning.  I thought oil was something that was supposed to burn.

My great aunt owned several rental houses that she had inherited from her brother-in-law, my grandfather.  When I got old enough to mow lawns she employed me to mow these yards.  She not only paid me to mow, but she gave me the lawnmower.

I had watched my older brother check the oil gauge in his mower, so I did the same thing to make sure that it was full.  But he told me that the mower was not supposed to burn oil. I didn't understand why you needed this combustible liquid in the mower that wasn't supposed to burn.  I guess I should have asked my brother or somebody, but I just trusted my own faulty logic.  Since the mower wasn't supposed to burn  the oil in the first place, I decided that checking the oil wasn't necessary.  It was just one less thing I had to do when I mowed. I figured that the mower didn't even need it.

Several weeks into the summer while mowing a yard the mower developed a pinging sound in the engine.  I didn't pay that much attention to it. As I continued to mow, the pinging sound got louder. But I continued to mow.  Then a few minutes later the engine ground to a sudden stop.  When I tried to start it, the cord wouldn't even move. It was stuck.

I pushed the mower up the street to a filling station and asked the attendant to take a look  at it.  He pulled the stuck cord, looked at me and said, "It's froze up."  I asked, "It's what?"  He pulled the dip stick out of the mower and said, "There's no oil in it.  It's froze up."

I learned a new word--lubricate.

I pushed my mower across town to my great aunt's shop.  I told her what happened.  Now your aunt might have scolded you. Or told you to pay her for the mower.  My aunt did neither.  She told me to check the oil from now on and to pick out another lawn mower.  So was I a recipient of grace and love or suffering from affluenza? I'll let you decide.

It was a valuable lesson, even if it was at my aunt's expense--whereas oil doesn't burn it serves a useful purpose in an internal combustion engine.  When I bought my first car four years later, I checked and changed the oil quite frequently. I still do. But the first time I ran out of gas, I was reminded that gasoline does in fact burn.