A few of you city and town dwellers who have cable and/or no snowmobiles in urban limits, might think my reason for hating snowmobiles is made up. But it’s not. Snowmobiles ruin television reception that is over the air.
I grew up in the country where many a snowmobile would wander past. If they got close enough to my house, snow would appear on the TV as well as outside, usually in horizontal lines with staticky sound that overpowered what Hollywood was trying to send. We only had bunny ears. Maybe those huge antennas would work to minimize this. I don’t know, though.
I’m not sure what it was about snowmobiles that affected this. Perhaps it was the small and powerful engine. If so, the nonexistent back then, but now common ATVs would probably affect television reception in the same way. Or maybe it was the snowmobile treads on the snow that cause the bad television reception.
So, today, if I’m walking in a gift shop and see a snow globe with a snowmobile in it, I might suddenly flashback to my youth. If I had a really bad week at school and wished to take solace in Saturday morning cartoons, I would sit or lie facing the television, hoping it would take me away from my troubles. And then a snowmobile or a parade of the accursed vehicles would go past and all I would feel was anger toward the world at large.
Or, I might be watching the snow fall and think that the world is getting a nice white blanket for snowmobiling and a nervous twitch appears on my face. A vacant stare is all the outside world will see but I am remembering that two hour mystery movie where the detective finally says “The person who committed the murder is -” and the sound of static replaces the clear speech. But for a brief second the detective is clear again and says, “they committed the murder by -” and the static and picture is so lousy that you can’t understand anything until the movie is over.
Game shows were popular in my youth. Seeing one even by itself can trigger my hatred of snowmobiles. Trivia was one of the most popular ways to test the contestants. Many times you would hear the question but never the answer. (On Jeopardy you would hear the answer but not the question). Oh snowmobiles, how you made a mess of my early life.
So I am caught wondering. Does the new digital television system fix the problem caused by the hated snowmobilers? I tried a few searches but couldn’t find the answer. If anyone knows, please leave the answer in the comments.
