6

Luckily, Gramma wasn't home, so it was easy to get the mower out of her house. We rolled it over to Mrs. Canfield's yard, and then we were ready to get to work. That's when me and Rowley realized neither one of us had ever actually operated a lawn mower before. So the two of us poked around for a while and tried to figure out how to get the thing started. Unfortunately, when we tilted the mower on its side, all the gasoline spilled out onto the grass, and we had to go back over to Gramma's to get a refill.

幸运的是，奶奶不在家，所以很容易把割草机从她家搬出去。 我们把它滚到坎菲尔德太太的院子里，然后我们准备开始工作。 这时我和罗利才意识到我们俩以前都没开过割草机。 所以我们两个摸索了一段时间，试图弄清楚如何启动它。 不幸的是，当我们把割草机倾斜时，所有的汽油都洒在了草地上，我们不得不回到奶奶家去重新加满。

I picked up the owner's manual for the mower while we were at it. I tried to read it, but the instructions were written in Spanish. I got the feeling from the bits and pieces I could understand that operating a lawn mower was a lot more dangerous than I originally thought. I told Rowley he could have the first crack at the lawn mowing and that I would go sit in the shade and start working on our business plan. Rowley didn't like that idea at all. He said this was a "partnership" and that everything had to be 50-50. I was pretty surprised by this, because I'm the one who came up with the idea for the lawn service in the first place, so I was more like the owner than a partner.

我们开割草机的时候，我拿起了割草机的使用手册。 我试着去看，但说明书是用西班牙语写的。 我从零零碎碎的东西中得到了一种感觉，我可以理解，操作割草机比我原来想象的要危险得多。 我对罗利说，他可以先剪草坪，我要去树荫下坐着，开始制定我们的商业计划。 罗利一点也不喜欢这个主意。 他说这是一种“合作关系”，所有事情都必须五五开。 我对此感到非常惊讶，因为我是最初提出草坪服务想法的人，所以我更像是业主而不是合伙人。

I told Rowley we needed someone to do the grunt work and someone to handle the money so it didn't get all sweaty. Believe it or not, that was enough to make Rowley walk right off the job. I just wanna say for the record that if Rowley ever needs me for a job reference in the future, I'm gonna have to give him a lousy review. The truth is, I don't really need Rowley anyway. If this lawn service business grows the way I think it will, I'm gonna have about a hundred Rowleys working

我告诉罗利，我们需要有人来干粗活，也需要有人来管钱，这样就不会让事情变得一团糟。 信不信由你，这足以让罗利离开工作岗位。 我只是想郑重声明如果罗利以后需要我给他推荐工作的话，我会给他一个糟糕的评价。 事实上，我也不需要罗利。 如果草坪服务的生意能像我想象的那样发展，我就能雇到100个罗利

for me. In the meantime, I needed to get Mrs. Canfield's lawn mowed. I looked through the manual for a little while longer and then figured out that I needed to pull on this handle attached to a cord, so I tried that. The mower started up right away, and I was off and running. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. The lawn mower was self-propelled, so all I needed to do was walk behind it and steer every once in a while. Then I started to notice that there were piles of dog poop everywhere. And steering around them was not an easy thing to do with a self-propelled mower.

给我。与此同时，我得找人给坎菲尔德太太修剪草坪。 我又看了一会儿说明书，然后发现我需要拉动这个连接着绳子的把手，所以我试了试。 割草机马上开动了，我就跑起来了。 没有我想的那么糟。 割草机是自动的，所以我所要做的就是走在它后面，每隔一段时间操纵一下。 然后我开始注意到到处都是成堆的狗屎。 用自动割草机绕过它们可不是件容易的事。

The V.I.P. Lawn Service has a very strict policy when it comes to dog poop, which is that we won't go anywhere near it. So from that point on, whenever I saw anything that looked suspicious, I would mow a ten-foot circle around it just to be safe. The job actually went a lot faster after that because I had a lot less lawn to cover. After I was done, I went to the front door to collect my money. The final bill was thirty dollars, which was twenty dollars for

vip草坪服务中心对狗屎有严格的规定，那就是我们不能靠近它。 所以从那时起，每当我看到可疑的东西，为了安全起见，我就会在它周围围一个10英尺的圈。 在那之后，我的工作实际上进行得快了很多，因为我要覆盖的草坪少了很多。 做完之后，我走到前门去收钱。 最后的账单是30美元，这是20美元

the lawn plus ten bucks for the time me and Rowley spent designing that flyer. But Mrs. Canfield wouldn't pay. She said our service was "lousy" and that we hardly mowed any of her lawn. I told her about the dog poop issue, but she still wouldn't cough up what she owed me. And to make matters worse, she wouldn't even give me a ride home. You know, I figured someone might try to stiff us this summer, but I never thought it would be our very first customer. I had to walk home, and by the time I got to my house, I was really mad. I told Dad the whole story about my lawn mowing experience and how Mrs. Canfield wouldn't pay me.

草坪，再加上我和罗利花在设计传单上的十块钱。 但坎菲尔德太太不肯付钱。 她说我们的服务“糟透了”，我们几乎没有修剪过她的草坪。 我跟她说了狗屎的事，但她还是不肯把欠我的钱掏出来。 更糟糕的是，她甚至不送我回家。 我料到今年夏天可能会有人骗我们，但没想到会是我们的第一个客户。 我不得不走回家，当我回到家的时候，我真的很生气。 我把我修剪草坪的经历和坎菲尔德太太不给我钱的事都告诉了爸爸。