The Zamboni is Dead/Haiku Sunday

If you want some background on Zambonies or my Zamboni driving prowess, go here .  It explains a lot.

 I killed the Zamboni today.  It's dead.  At my hands.  I was cleaning the ice and the Zamboni stopped picking up the snow so I was just dragging around a giant snow bank under the machine.  I noticed it because I am the observant type.  I pulled off the ice to fix the problem.  Fixing it means you turn it on and spray part of it down with hot water until it works again.    Sorry for the technological jargon.  Have I lost anyone?

As I'm doing that, I hear and smell something bad.  I look up and the Zamboni, it's bleeding.  it's bleeding badly.  Spraying red fluid from a severed artery.  All over the walls of the rink and the floor and the plexiglass windows.  Spraying out it's lifeblood.  Hydraulic fluid.  The hose burst.  It really looked like blood.  And then the red-stained clumps of wet snow . . . looked pulpy and bleeding and traumatized.  Like flesh.  The closest thing I can think of is if your kid really liked elephants so you got them an elephant cake for their birthday but when you cut into it it's red velvet cake and it just looks like you're cutting huge chunks out of that poor elephants flesh.   I cut huge chunks of flesh from the poor, poor Zamboni.

It was only a matter of time, I suppose.  It's not the first vehicle I've killed.  Won't be the last.

Zambonee Booooyyy
The pipes, the pipes are caaallling.

Stay gold, Zamboni Boy.  Stay gold.

Meanwhile, while I was dealing with loss and grief and funeral arrangements, I got a call from my wife that sounded like this.  Approximately:

"Hi honey.  What happened?  It's bleeding?  What's bleeding?  That's awesome.  What are you, uh, hold on, (kids waiing) Igottagobye*click*. "

I mean, I'm trying to mourn here, people, and I gotta hear that shit?  When I need my family most?  Dammit.

------------------------------------------------

Haiku Sunday

Doritos drift down
crunchy nacho triangles
Five second rule, right?

Coffee, hot and sweet
Indulge in a cruller, too
Do you take Visa?

Look in the mirror
Search my soul, what do I see?
Zamboni killer

Zamboni Tuesday

Worked an extra shift on the Zamboni tonight. And the law of averages being what it is, I broke the Zamboni tonight. Using only my right arm.

This is a Zamboni:



I have a penchant for breaking big truck-like things.


When I was 17, I totaled a 1980 Ford Econoline Ambulance. With working siren. It was technically my first car. Why was this my first car? They were out of fire trucks.

Long story short, my mother and I were moving and we wanted to go quickly and nothing says quickly like a 1980 Ford Econoline Ambulance.

Before I totaled it, I did manage to have an accident where the ambulance was fine but I completely ruined a brand new Lincoln Continental. As I was giving another kid who worked with me a ride home from work.

Backed right into it and just crushed the grill. The kid I was giving the ride to decided to walk. I was honestly surprised. We were fine, it was the other guy's car that got destroyed.


Then, while driving for the post office I got into one accident that the post office actually knows about. No one was injured. I blamed the bend in the street. Another one I got in, I was slowly backing the postal truck up, noting the large tree stump behind me, when a loud abrasive voice in my head suddenly shouted, "go mutha fucka, go!" and while I disagreed strongly with that sentiment, my right foot thought that this was a great idea. I exploded a huge chunk of stump. Then I sped out of the area in a shower of wood chips and furtiveness while The Voice screamed "YAAAAAAHHHHH. take that, you fuckin' tree stump!"
That one stayed between me, the truck, and that poor stump.


With the Zamboni, I have stalled, frozen, insulted, defiled and otherwise made it difficult for my boss to trust me alone with the thing, but I never actually broke it before.


There is a sort of plunger that you push down on when the ice is building up and this plunger has a device on the end that chops up the ice and gets it moving again. I was wailing away on the thing, far harder and more frequently than necessary probalby, when it just . . .gave.

I could see that there was one nut that held it together, and I had the nut, but I couldn't figure out how to get in there to put the nut back. I had to call the company mechanic. It turned out to be a fairly simple process, which he made sure I understood by explaining it to me in a tone one could only describe as eat me you condescending douche-bag Zamboni mechanic. Tone.

S'alright. Wait til they come in in the morning and see that I've Zamboni'd the bleachers. Wonder what I'll get to drive next. Maybe a Mack truck on the Pacific Coast Highway. How do I keep getting these jobs?




Homemaker Man

Homemaker on Ice.

I work now. No shit. Outside of the house. With people. Blecch. Every sunday. I drive the Zamboni at the local skating rink. Don't ask how I got the job, I'm not sure myself. Not exactly a drive and maintain large machinery competently kind of guy really. Mostly I'm a, "Sure i'll drive it . . . what is it?" kind of guy. The tough part is hockey parents. Nothing like two 40 year-olds who want to bash each other's brains in over a 2 minute offsides (I don't know what that means) penalty committed by one of their kids. The men are bad too.

It's no place for a Jew on Rosh Hashanah. Or any other day.

The nice part is that there is some down time. This week, I used my down time to whip out a few haiku. Originally inspired by (ripped off from) a post from this consistently funny blog. That and a phone call from home. I don't mean to be unoriginal, it's just when I see haiku, I want to do them too. Wrote many back when I was stuck in a cubicle not working. They're fun. Ok, with out further ado, common 5-7-5 format:

Homemaker Man not home
Daughter on phone whines "help me."
Whoa. Poor Poor mommy

Hockey moms and dads
kids run freely, skates gleaming
Hey, whose toe is that?

Hockey time is here
Cold wind blows through empty seats
wake up, white people.

I want to use the word
Zamboni in a haiku
I think this is cheating.


P.S. I'd like to say, mainly to my wife but also to any one else who is either a truly skilled (like my wife) poet or who really knows poetry, I know that these count as haiku only by the very slimmest of margins. A real haiku is like origami. Small and delicate and simple and beautiful, and when you unfold it there are many many layers. My haiku are more like fucked-up paper airplanes. They work for a short distance but then they either crash or poke someone in the eye.


HM out!