#minarelli

Back at the shop, working around the constraints put upon me by the full face-mask and GPS ankle bracelet, my great work was taking crude form. With an armful of 50cc Minarellis liberated from the metal-recycling pile out back, it would find its voice, soul and life.

Picture if you will the glorious afternoon of my return: small children are spending valuable family time with their doting fathers and mothers, learning to skate, realizing the truth that even the harshest Canadian winter day can have the clouds crack open and issue forth a bounty of memorable fun and pleasure. Then some asshole shows up with a nine-thousand-rpm miniature Zamboni which lights all four of its hard-foam tires on the slightest throttle provocation.

The press thought it was wild. They spewed out dozens of profiles of me, posing me as some kind of great inventor who was doing this out of the good of his own heart. I was never one for this degree of attention, and merely grunted along with their interview attempts until I could leave to do another donut, hooting and hollering.