I did it. With the help of a very lovely neighbour named MING, who may or may not capitalise all letters in his name, which rhymes with KING.

The instructions were clear, and so I:

(1) Inserted the toy key which matches my festive nail polish, see…

(2) Then pushed a squishy thing that supposedly splooshed gas all over something on the inside. I think they’re lying about this because I couldn’t hear anything happening. Even though I think this instruction is just for fun and really nothing more, I followed it carefully.

In tandem while pushing the squishy three times, I was supposed to ensure that I physically covered some other part of the snow blower. Maybe. I didn’t really understand that part and so didn’t do it.

Instead, I pushed the squishy six times with the following logic: if something had to be covered, this was because the gas could sploosh outside. Six squishes instead of three ensured that even with the escaping gas, enough splooshed gas remained within to coat whatever.

Smart, yes?

(3) Anyway, then I made sure the slidey bar was atop the rabbit, rather than the turtle.

(4) And that Olga the Snow-blower was being Choked rather than Run.

(5) And finally, I pressed the Start button.

Only, nothing happened. Repeatedly I pressed, but Olga just yelled ME’KH and then stopped talking.

I stood confused.

Across the way was KING MING running around with Olga’s older brother. I rolled down my driveway and sidled up to KING MING. As I am the size of a Rice Tank while wearing my parka, as this to-scale drawing confirms, I stood at the bottom of KING MING’s driveway and yelled for help.

KING MING very graciously came to assist me and gave me the greatest and most important secret handshake to the world of snow-blowers: GASOLINE.

I didn’t have any in Olga.
(You’ll have to pardon her inclination for drunk. It is the holidays, after all, and who doesn’t like a little punch in their day?)

Rather naively, I assumed that Olga was already full of gas; that she would be delivered as such. Wrong. (And maybe now that I see that before me in print, maybe had she been transported with gasoline inside of her, she would have been hazardous or explosive? I don’t know…I’m not smart around the holidays. Sparkle distracts me much too much and I see snow and think that God keeps forgetting to stop dumping icing sugar on us, please and thank you.)

As a final and small end to this, I will say that snow blowing is difficult and lonely and an extreme sport of domesticity. If I could sit on Olga and drive her, I wouldn’t mind, but as it stands, Olga doesn’t even reverse her ass up like a proper Ho in a 50 Cent video and so she is of little use to me at this time.

My love affair continues with Mr. Shovel. Strong, steady, durable, light and flexible, just as God intended.