Well guys, I had a blast. Don’t know about you, but I thought that was one helluva snowmobile ride.
Sorry if I held you up, but you see my thumb … my right thumb … found pressing down on the gas a little too tiring.
Lame excuse, I know, but I really should concentrate more on that overlooked part of my anatomy. Perhaps Vince’s Gym has a thumb-strengthening contraption.
So a big thank you to the Northern Lights Snowmobile Club for my Shoal Lake adventure. You guys were terrific.
Now a letter to the mean machine – the Polaris Widetrack (or is that Wisecrack?) that often proved such an argumentative companion on my first snowmobiling experience.
Okay, I should accept most of the blame for being … well … thoroughly inept. But, come on Mr. Polaris, you could have handed me a few breaks. Made me look a bit better.
My dear Snowmobile:
I know you’re probably feeling rather smug right now, thinking you outsmarted a hapless Englishman trying to be a Canadian. What did you keep calling me in that throaty growl of yours? Doofus, was it? Doofus Dinglefritz?
Perhaps you think I should be saving my energy for tea and crumpets, moaning about the weather, hooliganism, fighting the Scots … or whatever else you think the English are designed for.
Well, I have a message for you. I’m not ready to give up. Oh no, not by a long way. My fearless leader Winston Churchill would not approve.
In fact, you and I could well become best of buddies. That’s right, buddies. I feel it in my bones … yes the very bones you tried so hard to rock and roll, shake and rattle. And succeeded in doing, I might add, judging by the aches the following morning.
So tell me, why were you so cranky, particularly at the outset when I was struggling to hide my incompetence? You wanted to humiliate me, didn’t you?
When I asked you to ride straight, you insisted on going left or right, refusing all attempts at correction. You seemed to rear like a horse with no respect for its master.
When I asked you to stay on compacted snow, you pulled me into the deeper stuff and then stubbornly refused to leave, so someone had to physically move the skis.
When my fingers went numb, you showed no pity. Then when the grip warmers were turned on you scalded me.
Funny, wasn’t it? Ha, ha, ha.
Well, Mr. Snowmobile, let me tell you what I was thinking while you were misbehaving. As well as “help me, Lord! help me, Lord!” I was thinking: darn you, Mr. Polaris, I will tame you. I will, I swear it. Even if it takes every sinew, muscle and cartilage in my rickety old frame, I will tame you.
That’s how determined I am. Yes, I can be just as willful and obstinate as you, which gives us something in common. Which is why we can be buddies.
So if we hang out again, things will be a little different between you and me.
Just you wait and see.
