I love my electric snow blower

I don’t fawn over yard implements. A lawnmower cuts grass. A rake collects leaves. Cutting grass and collecting leaves mean extra work for me. Extra work is bad.

I suppose these devices are labor-saving, in the sense that it’d take longer to manicure my lawn with pinking shears. But, seriously, giddy exhilaration for a yard tool? That’s like working yourself into a froth over oven mitts. Some things are simply beneath a man’s dignity.

Yet I find myself in near ecstasy for a tool that has rendered obsolete my utter distaste for shoveling snow. I’m talking of course about my brand-spanking-new Toro 1800 Power Curve electric snow blower. And, no, before you ask, this isn’t a paid endorsement.

I have a notorious reputation among friends and family for bad luck when it comes to consumer goods. Of the local grocery’s hundred or so identical packages of microwaveable tortellini Alfredo, I will always pick the one that was accidentally filled with Gerber mashed turnip. If I choose a vacuum cleaner off the shelf at Wal-Mart, I’ll invariably discover at home that the factory people forgot to install its suction parts. Every new car I’ve owned has been a stinker. Even my pricey MINI Cooper S, whose front and rear wiper motors and the entire power steering system blew just a few days after my warranty expired.

You may wonder, then, what prompted me to commit five hundred bucks to a skimpy-looking electric snow shovel, when a cool thousand would have acquired one of those massive, throaty, gas-gulping, penile implants you push around your driveway with every taut muscle your groin can summon.

Indeed, a self-respecting hunk of testosterone like me should warm mightily to the awesome geyser produced by an overpowered snow mulcher bristling with rivets and other manly features. But I’m not one for such extravagance. Sure, the price of petrol has dropped like Paris Hilton’s frillies, but it’s maintenance of the thing that exasperates me. Calculating the correct oil-to-gas ratio, polishing spark plugs, purging fuel lines of sediment – even if I were skilled enough to perform these tasks without setting myself on fire, I’d still hesitate. The machine should work for me, not the reverse.

In spite of my history with new gadgets, and ignoring my nefarious male ego urging me to more power, I opted instead for electric. A shiny red Toro, not vaguely reminiscent of the little red wagon I pulled behind me as a kid.

If you read the reviews on Amazon.com, this particular machine is the frugal snow-blowing connoisseur’s idea of manna from Heaven. Some reviewers literally gush like teenage girls at the mere thought of their exquisite devices – such is the geek subculture growing up around the Power Curve. I could hardly resist.

It was something of a challenge to find a dealer in Ottawa. For some arcane reason, Toro doesn’t seem to think of Canada as a good market for its snow removal equipment. We got only 13 feet of the damned stuff last year.

Anyway, I finally located a nearby reseller and called ahead to check for availability. They had one in stock and the next day was to be our first brutal snowfall of the season. I paid for it, sight unseen, over the phone.

I’ll spare you the details of my pickup and hair-raising transit home. Snowstorms bring out the jackasses in this town.

Suffice to say, I was nearly aquiver with anticipation by the time I plugged in my new purchase. I performed a silent genuflection, breathlessly squeezed the starter bar – and nothing. Not a peep. My spiffy new Toro sat there, mocking me with its dysfunction.

This of course is the point where lesser men would swear like lesbian feminists at a Larry Flynt film festival. Not I. Defective appliances are my kith and kin, so to speak. As it turned out, this particular malfunction was entirely the doing of my electrician, who’d been working at my home the previous month and somehow disconnected my outdoor power supply. No biggie. I plugged into a supplementary outlet and gave ‘er another go.

To say the Toro Power Curve works well is something of an understatement. It was like blending a Margarita with an industrial wood chipper. I made short work of my driveway – ten minutes, tops, and with a heavy accumulation of slush – then regarded my neatly swathed lane with the kind of masculine pride that comes after a bitter job easily accomplished.

My neighbors snicker now when I pull out my little red snow blower. I care not. My driveway’s just as spotless as theirs. And for the same reason I don’t drive an SUV – my dick’s big enough, thank you very much.