Bent Words

Bent Words

September 21, 2010

I feel like I should be studying.

Instead, I'm drinking a beer. Which isn't necessarily a good thing considering I'm SICK. But the OH MY GOD factor currently outweighs the What's Best For Me factor at present. So the beer is deserved.

As well as the scowly face.

(Scowly is a word in Laura Land.)

At 5pm this evening, we (meaning the Action Power Sports parts employees) were told by our GM that we are now carrying the BRP (Bombardier Recreational Products) line. The BRP line includes Ski-Doo snowmobiles, Sea-Doo watercraft, Can-Am (backwards tricycles), Evinrude (!) and Rotax motors.

Eerily, the thunder of a passing storm struck just then.

"What's that mean?" I asked, sniffling.

"Means you have to clear out the back parts room to make room for a truckload of BRP shit. Now," replied my manager.

"Now as in right now?"

"Yes."

"Did you know anything about this?"

"No."

"Lame."

We all nodded in agreement.

A truck and trailer full of jackets, hats, helmets, gloves, snow boards, tubes, shirts and spooky, naked manikins materialized before our front door. Parts numbers coupled with descriptions in French on the tags. We did not ask questions. We merely unloaded the "truckload of BRP shit."

I should have known better. Charlie Leitermann, my sales manager at the old shop who now owns a used motorcycle shop called Rev, called me up last week to order some Honda parts and casually mentioned that he "knew the deal was done."

"What deal?" I asked.

"Looks like John and Jay Jepson bought out Gillette."

"Razors?"

There was some giggling.

"No, Laura. Gillette Motorsports. BRP. Can-Am. Sea-Doo, Ski-Doo?"

"Oh my."

"You didn't hear it from me."

I suppose I thought he was joking. I didn't even think to pass on the giant mass of information just handed to me. I merely rolled my eyes and continued to take down his scanty Honda order. We've been threatened with sleds before but nothing ever came of it so I certainly did not find any reason to cry "sleds!" now.

Silly me.

So there I stood, in a room completely full of "BRP shit," wondering what in the world I knew about Bombardier.

Here's what I know...

We once had a Bombardier ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) in our store at the old shop. It was used. We took it in on trade. It was like 650ccs of "Holy shit! This thing will kill me!" and was too wide in wheel base to be licensed for any recreational trails in the United States. We sat on it, literally, afraid to ride it, for two years. No less than two employees rolled it and no more than two bones and shop windows were broken (well, this is just speculation and perhaps added for a bit of 'wow' but you smell what I'm cooking here) as a result.

We finally sold it to some punk who thought it would be cool to own a machine that goes way too fast for any human traveling off-road and cannot be fixed for lack of parts availability. Eventually, Bombardier renamed their all-terrain vehicle product Can-Am. I have not seen an actual Can-Am ATV, I've only heard tell of them.

The actual Bombardier history looks cool. I'm not precisely sure how they soaked up the Ski-Doo and Sea-Doo and Evinrude and whatever else lines but I do know that "Ski-Dog" was initially intended to be a practical vehicle to replace the dogsled for hunters and trappers in Canada. By an accident, a painter misinterpreted the name and painted "Ski-Doo" on the first prototype (created sometime around 1959).

Oops.

That's how snowmobiles came about. Bloody Canadians, producing huge track vehicles for the snow, needed to get around more quickly and Joseph-Armand Bombardier made it happen. Eh.

I'll read more later when I actually feel up to the task of studying this new product line.

For now, all I know is that I have a bunch of "BRP shit" clogging up my back room. And we're expecting more in the way of hard parts tomorrow. And there's no where to put all these hard parts. And no one in my department holds a smattering of knowledge when it comes to sleds. And there's a $5000.00 order of Sullivan Brothers apparel expected in two days, on top of everything else in Honda and Suzuki land that I'm expecting. And Cory's off tomorrow. Which means I can't be sick even if I am. Which also means that I won't be taking Thursday off, as originally planned, to get my hair cut or recover if my sickness has progressed or get my silly new contact lenses checked or clean my apartment or do my laundry or buy me some food.

And perhaps I could be turning my attention to all these things right now but, instead, I am sharing (i.e. bitching).

And drinking a beer.

And making a scowly face.

Because that's all I got now.

And I do believe that that's about enough "BRP shit" for one day...

P.S. Chris, you'll understand this, as per our earlier text messaging session...

F*CK being an adult and F*CK being sick when you cannot be ten-years-old lying on your parental unit's couch, watching cartoons with a big bowl of egga toasta and "poor baby!" uttered every now and then.

AND F*CK BRP SHIT!

Written at 8:45 p.m.