Imagine buying a brand new lawn mower, but you get it home and it doesn’t work. That would be pretty frustrating.

If you took it back to the store, chances are the reason it didn’t work wouldn’t be the same reason that the mower in this story didn’t work.

The employee at the store is so confused by what the customer did and how the story plays out.

Let’s read all the details.

You mean it has to be pure fuel to run? ..or the lawnmower fuel fiasco

Rental guy again. Of all of my stupid stories, this one takes the cake as far as IQ limbo [how low can you go?].

We do repairs on top of rentals at my work. We also sell equipment.

In this case, a homeowner purchased a lawnmower less than 24 hours prior to coming in with an issue.

She was unable to start it.

He tried to figure out what was causing the problem.

As I was the only one around with any semblance of an idea of what do, I was tasked with figuring out what she did.

As I ran through the normal ops check routine, she ranted about it being brand-new and a piece of crap and how she was disappointed that it didnt work right out of the box [all of this is very distracting when you’re trying to fix something].

As she droned on, I had exhausted nearly every common issue for no-starts on mowers, save for fuel.

I cranked open the cap and was hit with the scent of deteriorated fuel (its distinctive, like decomposing fuel is to mechanics as differing types of coffee are to a coffee shop employee).

She played dumb.

Interrupting her rant, I asked how old the fuel was.

Apparently I threw her train of thought off course because it took her a few moments to stutter that it was brand-new from the gas station, like, yesterday! [if i had one dime for each time i heard that..]

Not amused, I took a siphon pump and emptied a good portion of ‘fuel’ into a waste bucket. It was right then that I realized the full extent of her folly.

He discovered the problem.

Shining my LED worklight into the bucket, I saw a separation between the lighter fuel and the heavier liquid below it. The membrane between the two was speckled with dirt particles. Upon closer investigation, the ‘fuel’ in question was, in fact, a 25-75 water-gas mixture [/facepalm].

I told her this and she replied, with a straight face I might add, “oh. it has to be pure fuel to run?”

A few awkward moments passed as I transitioned from my nic cage “you don’t say” face back to a more retail-acceptable countenance.

Apparently this woman thought that mixed gas (which does not go in lawn mowers regardless) was a mix of gas and water, and not the traditional gas and oil.

He was very confused.

As my mind continued to be fully boggled, I stammered a few non-confrontational options for what she could do from there as far as repairing it.

She sort of thanked me and left.

I was still in a bit of shock as to how that made any sense (combustible item + non-combustible H2O = mixed gas?), and was even more shocked when my superiors accepted her lawnmower as a return the next day.

Full refund and exchange for another mower, plus free assembly in the parking lot.

It is surprising that they replaced the mower for free when it was clearly a user error issue.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person wonders about the woman’s car.

Yes, this is the most annoying part.

This is true.

This comment is a joke. This is not serious advice.

She clearly knows nothing about lawn mowers.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.