The run of bad luck continues

[LoneCowboy]

The wife takes the little tractor (03 MF 1433) out to finish off the chipper yard story below.
I get a call from the wife
"tractor is broke"
"also I broke a tree and i hit the fence and broke a rail"


Unbelievable
Go out to the site
PTO doesn't come on.
gotta be the switch. Actually, it better be the switch because I have no other ideas beyond that. Get the electrical meter, yep, it's the switch.
[bad word, bad word, bad word]

Load it up, head back to the shop
the wife hits the mirror of the truck on the fence backing it in.

You have got to be kidding me. So, now I get to do all the jobs, because for some reason, she's either not paying attention or she's failing to learn the lessons of driving. Yes, people run into things, but NOT ON EVERY SINGLE JOB.

And of course, out of 3 reasonably local dealers, no one has the switch, ordered it, drop shipped overnight to my house. So, it won't be here til saturday and now it costs like $100.

BTW, attention dealers. If i have to pay to order it anyway, there's no reason for me to buy local. I realize you can't have everything, but it feels like all the dealers have nothing. Just my FYI. If i gotta order it anyway and pay shippng, I'm going lowest cost.

So, i'm down a tractor yet again. I feel like I need to buy yet another tractor just to have 3 to keep 2 running.
And I have no idea how i"m going to broach the subject with the wife of not hitting stuff.

Another craptastic week. This is getting old.

 

[AlanB]

Brian, if I may make a suggestion from experience.

Just let the part with the wife slide. She knows it, and you will not "win" by bringing it up.

Sometimes it sucks,

If it helps any, we all go through it on occassion, and as my BIL said to me, only people that are doing stuff make mistakes.

Keep digging.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Brian, if I may make a suggestion from experience.

Just let the part with the wife slide. She knows it, and you will not "win" by bringing it up.

Sometimes it sucks,

If it helps any, we all go through it on occassion, and as my BIL said to me, only people that are doing stuff make mistakes.

Keep digging.

So far this past week;

3 flat tractor tires, all 3 rears, one tire ruined.

rained out 1 full day after trailering to 3 locations, total milage over 200.

Think I broke left pinky finger this afternoon. Won't bend and I feel my heart beat in the finger.

Wife's car needs exhaust system, front to rear.

And there's still 2 days left in the workweek. Oh joy!

Yep, chastizing the wife, no matter what the reason is a lose/lose situation. 39 years, 9 months of marriage has taught me to bite down HARD on my tongue when she does something that irritates me. You think your week has been bad already?!?! Go start in on the Mrs. It'll go downhill FAST.

 

[jbrumberg]

Brian H:

I agree with AlanB- let wifey slide and remember how she helped you out with the "Chipper Job". I wish I could get that degree of cooperation with my wife when it comes to working the rider and/or the tractor.

Farmwithjunk- congradulations on your 39.75 years of marriage. I lived with my wife for 28 years before we got married 2.5 years ago (I do not like rushing things .). Self regulation and a sense of humor helps in any relationship. Jay

 

[BTDT]

Wow, Lonecowboy, your lucky. You have 2 tractors. And your wife helps with the work by driving one of them. Good advice to let it slide. As soon as you bring it up, your going to run over something yourself.

I think your right on with the dealer situation.

 

[Z-Michigan]

Bad week. It will pass.

Agree with all the others on not talking with the wife. I have had similar incidents with my wife, saying anything has always been bad for me. And she is generally reasonable.

 

[john_bud]

Yeah, she knows she ran into it. Your telling her won't do anything except make you feel good for about 3 minutes, then it will make your back hurt for 3 weeks from sleeping on the couch.

At least your wife is willing to back up the truck (I am assuming it is with the trailer). Most don't want to learn and are afraid of getting yelled at when they bump into something. If you have to say something, just tell her that you still love her more than the silly old mirror!

And I agree on local versus net. I have gotten stuff both faster and cheaper online than local. Dealing with a parts person that can't tell the difference between a differential and a dipstick doesn't help either...
jb

 

[Jay4200]

The wife takes the little tractor (03 MF 1433) out to finish off the chipper yard story below.
I get a call from the wife
"tractor is broke"
"also I broke a tree and i hit the fence and broke a rail"

Hilarious. I just think wife crashing stories are one of the funniest things out there. The only way it would've been better is if she crashed the little tractor into the big one.

Last year, my wife mashed the gas in her truck at the bottom of our driveway and proceeded to smash into my truck at the top. You have to laugh - you just HAVE to .

JayC

 

[cp1969]

I have a Cub Cadet that looks like it's been in a demolition derby. Headlight cover is MIA, one headlight bulb gone, two big black stripes down the left rear fender, plastic grass chute shredded. No one has any idea how any of that happend.

Brand new Toro push mower gets together with the water meter. Water meter wins. She has neighbor replace the pretzel-shaped blade, but the knock from the bent crankshaft betrays her and I find out anyway.

Both of our trucks have been clobbered in the driveway by our cars...one truck, twice. Front end of car, the part under the front bumper, ripped off by driving too far forward onto snow bank, and the debris simply discarded. No chance of a repair. To be fair, she's had accomplices--daughters.

Whenever I ask a "what happened" question, I get a "when it happened" answer:

"Where in the H is the front half of the car?!?!?"
"Oh, that happened a LONG time ago."

After 36 years, you get used to all your stuff getting destroyed. Including the anvil. Nothing is safe.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Sometimes you just go through a rough time for whatever reason. You will work through it. Sometimes it lasts a week or two, heck one time for me it was about a year. Still to this day that was my highest grossing year ever and I made a whopping $14k. I learned a lot of lessons that year and they have stayed with me. It's called experience, lucky for me I have 20-20 hindsight, well most of the time.

 

[JoeinTX]

I dunno, LC, I've got a gal not very different from that.


She can manage to bulls-eye every curb, speed-bump, pothole, and obvious obstruction in her path like a pro.


It must be female thing?....

 

[Soundguy]

I feel for you.

On the wife issue.. it's a no win situation.

I have a collection of 16' tube gates in the back pasture.. must be 4 of them now.. I use them as cattle panels... now that I've straightened them after the wife backed her yukon into them about once every 2 months.. making neat pretzles out of them..

I made the mistake about making a big deal out of it after the 4th gate so then she stays way away from the gate.. and scrapes the side of the side view mirror on the latching post side of the open gate. breaking mirror... no problem.. it matches the other side that she also broke hitting some part of the fence or gate... I see our wives learned to drive at the same place!! While I'm not the least bit sexist or chauvenistic ( spelling?).. I think when it comes to certain things.. it takes ba-- er.. gonads... to do it.. And that mostly covers things like looking in a rearview mirrow while backing a trailer .. I think most men get that as a side 'course' when learning to run the 'grill' in 'man school'.. (grin)

Soundguy

The wife takes the little tractor (03 MF 1433) out to finish off the chipper yard story below.
I get a call from the wife
"tractor is broke"
"also I broke a tree and i hit the fence and broke a rail"


.

 

[BTDT]

When my daughter was learning to drive, I would get in the truck with her and she would want to drive to grandma's house. We had 15 acres, us on one end and granny on the other. I would make her back up the whole way using her mirrors. She hated it (then), but now she is quite capable of backing.

 

[jbrumberg]

Estrogen and/or lack thereof can do strange things to mental status, mood, and behavior. I finally came to that conclusion after living with the same woman for over 30 years and working around 9 years in a female psychiatric admisssion unit . I am convinced that we are not the stronger *** whatever we may tell ourselves , but we do not appear to be overly influenced by cyclical imbalances of hormones . I will say this- males have more brain cells than females, but female brain cells are have more connections and are not influenced by testosterone. We have seen evidence of testosterone poisoning here on TBN on occassion . Jay

 

[irwin]

"Where in the H is the front half of the car?!?!?"
"Oh, that happened a LONG time ago."

After 36 years, you get used to all your stuff getting destroyed. Including the anvil. Nothing is safe.

Funny, thanks for the smile, had a few boiling-blood-simmer-bite tongue- moments myself.

 

[Egon]

Just sounds like a normal work day!!

Paper clip instead of switch??

 

[Farmwithjunk]

To be fair, she's had accomplices--daughters.

BTDT, raised 2. Bought many fenders.

The up side was my son had to grow up in a household with 3 women. He knew going in, what he was in store for when he got married. He knows all too well what happens when you speak your mind. And like me, he knows why houses need multiple bathrooms. (One for each female, plus one more)

I grew up with a firey temper.

My mom and dad couldn't break it.

Army put it in check, but didn't break my spirit.

Wife and 2 daughters later, I have no temper any longer. They laughed at me when I got mad.

 

[VABlue]

You just can't yell at women - they don't understand why you're yelling at them (because they know what they did) so you are doing it just to be mean. There's no sense in even talking about some things.

At least LC has a wife that will work. Mine just looks at the tractor and laughs at me. She has no interest in it - something I am incapable of understanding...

 

[dtd24]

This thread makes me want to bring my wife some flowers!! Just because

 

[AlanB]

I guess I should also add LC, that EVERY time (I swear) I chastise, or say something like, "don't run the tractor out of diesel".............

I do it.

If you look at the back of our mowing truck, the bumper now looks like a W where both sides had been hit by the dump trailer being jacknifed. Soon as I voiced my displeausure about the state of it, and I got in the truck to back into my driveway, I found that the neighbor had moved their mailbox and it now stuck into the road..........

I now have a one yard scratch over the front fender and then up onto the hood,,,,,,,,,,,, Yep, with the wife that I did chastised about the bumper standing there watching..

If you want it bad, wait till you hire employee's to run the business.

When my wife, had my 11 year old (now) son, we had hired help. My wife mowed till the day she delivered..... I told the nurse she needed to speed up that pitossin (sp) drip, so she could go finish the yards, she had only done 7 that day and there were 3 left

Anyway, you want to wreak havoc on machinery, let the hired help operate it. It all but put us out of business. The breaking point was when they backed over and removed 50' of 4' high chainlink fence.... "diddn't you notice!" employee,,, well, I was watching the road......... So I go out and replace the fence. The next week they backed over the new fence I had just put up, yep all 50 feet.

My wife and I often work together about as well as fire and gasoline, but all in all I am real thankful that I have a wife and kids that will pitch in.

Sometimes for me, when I get in a slump or run of badness, I try and break away for at least a bit to get a different perspective on things. Go look at that thread I put on related topics about a different perspective, and see if you want to trade places

Good luck LC, and ain't it cool that we have this resourse to share our trials and tribulations as we go along.

I think Sandman (think that is right) said it best, it is not serious, because it only takes money to fix it.

Found out last night a close freind of mine bit the dust earlier this week out in the NW. He was living his dream of being a Crop Duster and paid the price of flying low and slow. Now that is serious.