Lawn Mower Survival Strategies Needed
I have my own apartment, but part of the deal is mowing the building's lawn every week. And because my landlord's lawn mower broke a long time ago, I have a deal with the neighbor that I'll mow her lawn and mine if I can use her lawn mower and gas to fill it.

The problem? I HATE mowing the lawn.

It's hot; I hate the feeling of sweat on my body, especially on a hot, humid day when it isn't evaporating the way it's supposed to. This is why biking and swimming are my favorite types of exercise.

It's noisy. I can hardly hear myself think. At least it's a constant noise. If it were unpredictable noise, I wouldn't be able to do it at all.

And there's the smell: Exhaust, cut grass, the occasional pile of dog crap my neighbors have missed. (They do pick up most of them.)

Plus the bugs that land on me, plus the itch of grass clippings stuck to my legs, plus the vibration of the lawn mower in my hands... and then on top of it all the lawn mower stalls on a particularly heavy patch of grass and I have to drag it over to the path and re-start it, which annoys me a lot more than it ought to...

Eventually, all that combines, and I'm in a state of mild heat exhaustion plus overload, and it's very, very unpleasant. If I finish one lawn, I'm usually to the point where I have to lie down on the floor to recover. I don't get out of breath--it's not very heavy exercise to mow the lawn--but by then the heat has gotten to me and everything's just too much.

So lately I've been avoiding this... I just did my own lawn yesterday; but my neighbor's is still sitting there, obviously in its second week of growth. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a bit lazy. She works every day remodeling her house, while I sit and do calculus in front of a fan.

There has to be a way to get myself to tolerate all this sensory craziness a little better. Maybe a mental trick, maybe a workaround I'm not considering... I don't want to let my neighbor down but I'm afraid that sooner or later I won't have the willpower to push through it, and somebody will be disappointed.