An Open Letter...

Dear pile of festering offal that stole my board at Tremblant:

You better be praying right now. In fact, I suggest that every single day of your useless oxygen-wasting life, you take a moment and beg the god of dickless little fucks that I never find you. I suggest this because, you see, I am praying everyday that I just happen to catch you walking towards the gondola holding that Rossi 160 with the Flow bindings and SCUBA diving sticker. If that sublime moment ever comes to pass, I will not call the police. You probably will, but I won't.

It was a long bus ride home from Quebec yesterday. To pass the time, I was going through my copy of Moore's Essential Clinical Anatomy. It's a good book and I would recommend it, but I'm guessing your reading level might not be on par. Yes, indeed, it was a long ride home, giving me plenty of time to learn and thoroughly understand the human anatomy critical for the movements required in snowboarding. I know every ligament, every nerve, every tendon, every artery and muscle you need for that activity. I know exactly where the bones need to be broken to sever the nerves and arteries that supply your muscles of locomotion. If I ever find you, know this: you will never take another snowboard run in your pathetic grubby life. You should also know that you probably won't even be able to walk without a walker, climb steps, or voluntarily control urination or defecation. And one last thing, the nerve damage will invariably leave you impotent, not that that will have a huge impact on your sad life, but I think society at large will breathe a great sigh of relief with the limit to the prospect of your littering our planet with any more of your foul spawn. Of course, if you are female, you won't have the impotence problem, but the paralysis of the muscular floor of your pelvis and the inevitable prolapse of your entire reproductive tract through your vagina or anus will make the prospect of erectile dysfunction seem like a day at the beach.

I also studied up on the skull and mandible. Did you know that a LaForte III fracture actually detaches your face from the rest of your skull and that someone can actually grab your front teeth and pull your whole face off of your head? Also, with that fracture, they can't get a breathing tube through your mouth and into your trachea because of all the blood, swelling, and lack of leverage against which to push. They actually have to cut your neck open and insert a tube into your airway in order for you to be able to breath. You probably didn't know all that about the LaForte III, but if I ever find you, you'll have first-hand knowledge of what it's like.

Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to tell the tale of your ordeal. Although it's true that if you survive you will never speak again the way normal people do, most likely you will die from your injuries. First, there will be a lot of internal bleeding. Tough stuff to control, that internal bleeding. Also, your airway will be severely compromised. You're going to need a very skilled and caring physician to get that tracheostomy tube in you so that you don't slowly drown in your own blood and mucus. Now let me think of the first place you're going to receive care...it will probably be the resort infirmary. That infirmary will most likely be staffed by a physician who takes alpine sports very seriously. Anyone who knows a lover of the mountain knows that boarders and skiers are avid equipmentophiles. So when that doc hears that you are a board thief, somewhere deep down inside, he or she is going to harbor some anger towards you and feel, as we all do, that the world would be better off without you in it. Of course, that physician will do everything in his or her power to keep you alive. That's professionalism. But if it were me, I would want a physician working on me that didn't have that deep-seated, tenuously repressed desire to see me slowly suffocate to death. But that's just me.

So you see, you human stain, there is ample reason for you to pray. Pray that there are 5 or 6 really strong men to pull me off of you if that moment ever comes. Pray that your gurgling bloody-frothed pleas for mercy will strike some resonance with my philanthropic nature. Pray that help will arrive within the 5 minute window that you'll have after I finish with you. Pray that stem cell research makes huge strides in nerve and muscle regeneration in the next 10 years. But mostly you should pray that you never see this sight while you ride my deck: