The lawn mower, probably. It's 10 years old now. My sweet mother-in-law bought it for my birthday in 2016. It's lived a rough life, for sure. But I changed the oil, the air filter, spark plug...sharpened the blade too many times to count. First thing a few years ago was the height adjusting carrier for the wheels in front. Wouldn't hold the height correctly. I jacked with that and it has been passible. Then I noticed a crack in the deck around one of the engine mounting bolts. Then a small oil leak that has eluded me for the last year. And the other day, for the first time, it didn't start on the first pull.
There are few things in life as fruitless as continuing to pull on a lawnmower starting cord. Pull/hope. Pull/hope. Repeat. Repeat. This one has never been like that. One pull and vroom. So I decided to pull off the air cleaner and carb mechanism. A bit more complicated than I thought, assembly-wise. Sure enough, it was pretty gummed up. I cleaned it out, reassembled it incorrectly a couple times, then successfully returned it to it's former glory. Bam. Started right up.
Engine oil doesn't cost much. A spark plug doesn't cost much. An air filter is less than $10. But I'm not going to buy a new wheel assembly. Or have the deck welded. The old work horse is going to live out it's days kind of like my hip did...limping along, reluctantly doing it's job until it's painfully obvious that a replacement is coming.
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