I need to go on a winter adventure. That’s what I told myself the other day. I looked in the mirror and said, this guy needs a winter adventure.
So I decided to cross country ski until I found a yeti. I’ve always wanted to see a yeti. But yetis aren’t real, you idiot! I bet that’s what you’re thinking. But here’s the thing–you don’t really know that, right? You haven’t gone on hundreds of winter adventures and explored every nook and cranny a yeti might be in, have you? Didn’t think so.
And on the off chance that they are real, wouldn’t you want to see one? And wouldn’t also want to kill it and mount its head on the wall? I know I would. Talk about a conversation starter.
So I set off to the ski shop to buy some skis. The person behind the counter told me they were pretty much sold out. The only thing he had left was a pair of fat man skis. I didn’t want any fat man skis. People would think I was a fat guy.
The guy behind the counter told me that people could look at me and tell I wasn’t fat. They probably wouldn’t even notice the skis.
Hm, he made a good point. But I then thought, what about this? What if a pretty woman saw me and thought I used to be fat, so fat in fact that I had to wear fat man skis.
Maybe she’d be impressed, the guy told me. Maybe she’d be like, wow, this guy cross country skied his way into a somewhat fit body.
That didn’t matter to me. I didn’t want some pretty woman looking at me and picturing me as a fat man. So I passed on the skis and got some snowshoes.
I headed off to the mountains to find a cave. The thing about yetis is that they usually live in caves. Yetis love to hang out in a good cave. Hey, all power to them, but you wouldn’t catch me dead hanging out in a cave all day. Hard to meet girls when your home is a cave. I’ve learned that lesson.
Anyway, I found the mouth of a cave and headed in. I looked for any traces of a yeti, like footprints, fur, or a giant shadow of a hulking beast. I couldn’t find anything. All I found were a bunch of stalagmites. Or were they stalactites? Which ones are the type that fall right into your freaking eyeball when you stare at them and really hurt? It was that kind.
I walked out of the cave with bruised eyes and, if I’m being honest, a bruised spirit. I tried so hard to find a yeti, going into that one cave and all, and I failed. I wasn’t walking home with a dead yeti body in tow. The only thing I had in tow was a pointy stick I’d found to stab the yeti with.
I went back to the ski shop. I decided to go ahead and buy the fat man skis. I decided I was going to give up and sit around getting fat. Might as well buy the skis in preparation.
But then I saw something that reinvigorated me. There was this ice skating rink by the ski shop, and right there in the middle was a yeti, ice skating with all the children. The children were screaming. They must have been terrified.
I rushed over and hurled my yeti-killing stick at the beast. It didn’t puncture the yeti’s skin, but I knocked it over.
At first I was excited, but then I started noticing a few things that made me realize I may not have thrown my stick at a real yeti. Here were my clues.
First of all, the children were screaming even more than before. And their screams were a little different now. More fearful. The other screams seemed more like squeals of glee if I thought about it.
Secondly, there was this big banner above the ice rink that I hadn't seen that said “Skate With Yeti Freddy,” and there was this picture of kids laughing and smiling with a cartoon yeti.
And finally, the crumpled up yeti I’d thrown my stick out took off his head and there was a normal man's head under it. It was a yeti mascot costume.
“Hey, why’d you throw that stick at me,” he yelled out to me.
“I thought you were a real yeti,” I called back, slowly snowshoeing away. “Because you had those big ice skates. I thought they’d only make ice skates that size for a real yeti.”
“They’re fat man ice skates,” he called back.
“Hey, can I have that mascot head?” I asked.
He thought about it for a second, then agreed to give me the head for only two hundred dollars. So at the end of the day, I did get a yeti head mounted on my wall.
All in all, I’d say it was a pretty successful winter adventure. And if there’s one take away, I suppose it’s that if you really want a mythical beast’s head mounted on your wall, you don’t need to go searching for it in a cave. All you need to do is go to the right ice skating rink.
