Blow Me

Earlier this year my buddy gave me a snowblower as it was taking up too much space in his garage. He bought it when he lived in the Northeast, where they have real snow, and consequently it's a heavy-duty motherfucker, well beyond what is required for his current driveway. Now as gifts from mates go this one is right up there with the donation of a kidney, and I've been eyeing the thing as the weather got colder, just waiting to get out and try it. Well, with the snow this morning I finally got round to filling it up, adjusting all the cables and starting it.

Job number one was determining how to get it out from its resting place in the back corner of my garage, where it was effectively encircled by wood, bicycles, children's toys, tubes of sand and a lawnmower, and past my truck to freedom. In fact I think my mate had less trouble getting it out of his garage, which was supposedly too small for it... Nevertheless I wrestled it out with almost no swearing, supplied it with gasoline and oil (the correct viscosity of which was, by some minor miracle residing on my garage shelf) and checked the instructions one last time to ensure that my next move would not result in destruction of property or the chewing up of any limbs / other appendages.

The next miracle was that it started first time - I'm not sure if it's been used in the last two years and that's usually a recipe for turning any metallic, engine-based domestic appliance into a giant piece of decaying modern sculpture. Did I mention that this thing is a beast? I mean in St.Louis it's a beast; in Minnesota it would probably get sand kicked in its auger by bigger, harder snowblowers, but down here it's clearly the big dog. In fact I think it should have one of those manly names, like the Snowfucker 5000, or Icedeath XP-20, just to indicate that this is the kind of machine with which one does not fuck.

As I wheeled it out onto the driveway I was reminded of that scene in the Bond movie where the skier falls in the giant snowblower and gets shredded (I think Bond says something like "He certainly had a lot of guts") and it occurred to me that, armed with this machine, I could despatch dogs, cats and smaller children without too much trouble. I stepped forward, every inch of the throbbing, shiny, black-and-steel monster shouting "Fuck with me not - I am the Snowmaster!" and then proceeded to engage the pathetic two inches of wet snow on the ground.

Maybe this machine wasn't built for such a miserable precipitation, or maybe I just need to fuck about with the controls a bit more, to improve auger performance, but I have to say that the emission of snow, which I had imagined as mighty blast of white, resembled nothing so much as Frosty The Snowman ejaculating in my yard. Still, when we get some real snow, I'm going to be out there like a shot to unleash the full terror of this wonderful machine. And woe betide the child who slips and falls on my driveway. Isn't that right Q? "Yes 007, but do try and bring it back in one piece this time!"