Bonus Episode: Jonny Smith on lawn mowers and car washing

Welcome to my dad's car. Enjoy!

Welcome to My Dad's Car, a podcast discussing our personal relationship with automated discount. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about your dad's car. It can be your mums, your grand, your parents, girls, or even a neighbour's. If it made an impression, let's talk about it. Yay! I've made up a bonus episode. For the benefit of the tape, we're joined by Johnny Smith.

That's my day job mowing lawns, and I'm I'm no closer to an amica. As we speak.

Well, I I mean it's not really not entirely relevant to this, but I yeah, I love mowing lawns. I actually find it quite therapeutic. Maybe if I did it all day every day, I might not. But um it's how it's my first job basically.

Is it? Oh, okay, nice.

Yeah, I used to mow a lot of we lived in a down a uh um a cul de sack with a lot of elderly neighbours and got wind of the fact that they were paying a lot of me to um have them lawns mowed, or they were trying to mow them themselves and struggling. So me and my brother used to do it. Oh nice, yeah, and that was like full on. I mean, I think most weekends I did about 10 to 13 lawns. Wow. So it was hard work, but yeah, that money ultimately got me on the mountain bike ladder and then the radio controlled car ladder, and then sort of towards my first car. So got very fond memories of of that, and still to this day I love a m a lawn mow. Me and my brother have still got a real fetish for old lawnmowers. What are you what what are you uh running at the moment? I've got I've got a hater, I've got a self-propelled hater. 48. It's a 56. Oh, it's a biggie. Yeah, yeah. I went for the biggest um push point I could. Nice, but I went manual stock, not not electric start, because I just thought it's gonna go wrong. I'll just go sensible. I went old school. Yeah. And then um my brother's still got the Honda that he bought when we were 13 or 14, so we earned enough money to stop using my parents' mower, which was Mountfield, and we invested in an early 90s Honda, and he's still got it, and it still works just perfectly. The best.

Yeah, Honda's my main mower, and yeah, touch wood. That's they're good. That's what you can count on.

Yeah, yeah, they're good. They're good. I've got a really sketchy ride on that I bought because I just like the look of it. I don't actually need a ride on, I don't have a lawn that big at all. And uh, it's in the locker next to my my cars. Uh, it looks amazing, but to drive, it's so dangerous. I would not want to really mow a lawn. Unless it was a bowling lawn that was dead flat, I would not want to embark on a an actual lawn.

Sounds like I need an alignment, maybe, or a geo setup. Seriously, it's uh yeah.

On one hand, it's an amazing design to look at. On the other hand, I think the actual mowing part of it came last or the things of importance in the it's so bad, it tries to high side you it's like a zero steer thing, which tries to high side. It's front wheel drive, which doesn't entirely work.

Is it like one of the council ones that you see them going around on the grass verges sort of with handles?

Yeah. Well, if you're boring enough to to look it up, it's called a British Anzani Lawn Rider, and I think it dates from about 1962. It's one of the very early ride-on. Oh, right, okay. Oh, classic. Yeah. And it has a steering wheel-ish that's like a figure of eight of tubular steel, like a bat wing. Uh yeah, well, basically, listeners, viewers, don't buy one if you're actually looking to mow your lawn successfully because it's just blood dangerous, frankly.

Andy, can we add my dad's morrow to the uh franchise?

Uh you should, because to this day it's still one of my favourite activities. Washing a car with no time limit and mowing a lawn where the weather's just right, and opening that beer after you've you've standing back and admiring both the view of your lawn and the smell of your lawn. It's great. Love it.

I found sadly just sorry, quick washing a car with a time limit. Which comes with kids, is probably one of the worst things you can do in your lifetime.

Yeah, it's when my kids were younger, I vividly remember getting really frustrated during the course of a weekend because I knew I wanted to clean the car, but knowing that my window was shrinking, so I sort of perfected the 45 minute, which was about as quick as I could do the in and outside before getting shouted at or before it got dark. And then I used to do the whole washing cars in the dark with the floodlight on, you know, the the outdoor light, which is a terrible idea, actually. Yeah, it's just a really bad idea. Um, but out of necessity, like I am washing this car before clock strikes midnight on Sunday. I bloody am.

I'm dreadful. I'll do the outside and then yeah, I'll just pass on the inside so it can go months and months and months and years before the Hoover comes out. So I can do the 944 in half an hour, but the inside is like yeah, filled. Do you know?

I I've taken a vacuum to work before. This is when I didn't work for myself. I've taken a vacuum in the car to work, and in my lunch hour, I've vacuumed my car. To me, it just seemed logical because it's like I need to do it, the weather's alright, I've got an hour, let's just do this. Yeah. Other people were like, You've no idea how odd that is taking a vacuum scene.

I know someone that does it and they go on holiday, they do a full sort of in-out valet when they get to their destination. When they get to wherever they're going. Yeah. I can relate to that. Yeah, I I understand. I'm not sure I could get away with it, but I do understand family avoidance tactic.

That sounds like, isn't it? Yeah. I've had six hours of you in the car. I'm going outside to wash it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's uh dad voucher there, isn't it? You go, I've got everyone here safe. Yeah. Okay. It's been a long day. I'm now gonna sit down next to my car and polish it.

Bit of me time. Yeah.

Lovely work. Okay. All right, mate. Cool, cool. See you later, mate. Cheers, bye. Roll the credits.

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