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Misadventures and the Greased Pig

Misadventure and cross-country skiing seem to be closely linked concepts in my experience. I think it may have something to do with owning ankles that require stiff, downhill ski boots to keep from folding up like a cheap hide-a-bed.

Misadventure and cross-country skiing seem to be closely linked concepts in my experience. I think it may have something to do with owning ankles that require stiff, downhill ski boots to keep from folding up like a cheap hide-a-bed.

Having said that, I may be in the market for new skinny skis… or as I think of them, sweaty skis. I left my old ones buried in the storage shed when I moved recently. They were richly deserving of a decent burial and, not having seen the light of day for several years, I thought it cruel to disturb them in their final resting place.

My cross-country skis were very old. In another lifetime, I bought them in Montreal at Canadian Tire, or Le Tire Canadienne, as it’s known there. I couldn’t buy skis at an actual ski shop in Montreal in the late ’70s because I couldn’t find one where anyone would speak to me in English. Gibberish being my only other language, I was reduced to buying skis — and almost everything else — at Canadian Tire because at least in the West End of Montreal, Canadian Tire hadn’t yet knuckled under to the draconian language laws of the Parti Quebecois, known in the West End as le Parti d’Idiot.

Buying cross-country skis was not my idea. As was true of so many misadventures during those years, it was the idea of my wife, who, having come up with enough bone-headed ideas like cross-country skiing to make it abundantly clear we each married the wrong person, is now my ex-wife.

She believed it would be “good” for us to engage in a brisk winter sport. I believed it would be “better” for us to move to Hawaii. She won that argument.

When I finally made it out to Canadian Tire to buy cross-country skis, an adenoidal kid who looked like he’d spent too much time in front of an industrial french-frier pointed to the back of the store and said, “Ask for Jackrabbit.”

Jackrabbit turned out to be a chain-smoking, three hundred pound mechanic who was selling skis because he’d thrown his back out and couldn’t do brakes and shocks, his chosen profession. It was immediately clear Jackrabbit knew a lot more about brakes and shocks than skis but what little he knew was more than what I knew and that, coupled with somehow knowing my wife insisted I buy skis, gave him the upper hand.

Jackrabbit, of course, invoked the memory, if not the image, of Herman “Jackrabbit” Johannsen, the legendary cross-country skier who single-handedly revived a sport so close to dying it took on cult-like status once it started to regain followers. Jackrabbit Johannsen got his nickname in the 1920s when he organized Hare and Hound races for the Montreal Ski Club. He was generally the “hare” and was rarely caught. His speed and agility on skis earned him the name Jackrabbit. Jackrabbit the Mechanic, on the other hand, may have more appropriately been nicknamed Greased Pig on account of his abundant girth and his casual affiliation with personal hygiene.

But he knew how to sell. It took him two seconds to know he was going to watch me walk out of the store with a pair of skis he’d been trying to sell all season long. They were the right size, Canadian made and bore the name Splitkein, Norwegian for “pulled groin muscle”.

“Just the ticket, Sport,” he said, handing them to me.

Now, all cross-country skis have camber. But these skis had CAMBER. Actually, I suspect Splitkein also made leaf springs for 18-wheelers and these skis must have been a crossover production.

I tried to flex them. I couldn’t. “Kinda stiff aren’t they?”

“You’re a big, strong boy, ain’tcha Sport?”

I could feel shrinkage.

“Got anything that doesn’t need wax?” I asked.

“Waxless skis! I wouldn’t sell you those unless you squat to pee,” Jackrabbit fired back.

More shrinkage.

I was sunk. I paid for the skis and left the store before Jackrabbit could shrink me further. I saw him thumbs-upping the french-fry cook kid as I got into my car and drove away.

Showing the skis to my future ex, I put on the silly boots and clipped into the three-pin bindings. With all my weight on the skis, you could still slip your fingers under the all-important kick section directly under my foot.

“Kinda stiff, aren’t they?” she said.

“I can fix that,” I explained. Gently, taking care not to mar the gliding surface, I supported each end of the skis on a large cement block. Then, using equal care, I stored my entire record collection, all 400 kilos, right on the centre of the skis. Nine months later, I could finally flex them.

Now all I had to contend with was waxing. Jackrabbit was right about wax-no wax skis. Waxing was one of those universally recognized things that separated the men from the boys. Like so many other things that perform that function, the arguments for and against were firmly grounded in incomprehensible bullshit. But real men waxed. I waxed.

There are 273 different theories on waxing cross-country skis. None of them work. The immutable interplay of physics and meteorology work relentlessly to ensure you will need a wax, or combination of waxes, you either don’t have or one with completely opposite attributes to the one you just spent 15 minutes applying.

Apathy and inertia, the two guiding principles in my life, kept me from replacing those skis. I’ve given passing thought to buying new skate skis but I can’t shake the feeling skate skis are another wax-no wax black hole. Still, they seem like they’re more fun and they fit the True Guy criteria for dealing with apathy and inertia: New Gear.

But it makes me uncomfortable when I only see people dressed in spandex on them. Maybe next season.

• • •

Three weeks ago I wrote a column about the trials and tribulations I experienced moving my telephone service, a story about the Brians and Kevins I encountered at Telus. It focused largely on the abysmal customer service I received at the hands of the Kevins and, in hindsight, didn’t give enough credit to the Brians who went the extra mile to get my phone hooked up as quickly as they did.

To give credit where credit is due, there are a number of Telus people to whom I am deeply grateful. They fixed technical problems that weren’t theirs to fix, made service calls they shouldn’t have had to make and busted their butts to get me back online. I thank them. They provided exceptional service. They are the people who will move the company toward its desired goal of excellent customer service.

Changing the corporate culture of any big company is a monumental task. But several of them have convinced me that’s what they’re striving to do at Telus. Time will tell, but given enough Brians, the Kevins of the world will hopefully become an endangered species. Thanks to all the Brians.