An English Paper
“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.” - Matt Groening
I have a sneaking suspicion that my fondness of this quote is based more on my mental picture of weasels tormenting an overturned snowmobiler than any profound meaning it actually possesses. And any eye-popping conclusions reached would have no academic weight whatsoever considering the person who first said the quote draws yellow people with "issues" and four fingers. However, with the view that this is for English class and I need to fill a whole page, nothing can be overanalyzed!

Let me begin on the surface. If you are pinned beneath a snowmobile at night, ice weasels will come to eat you. This is love.

Eek.

That’s not good, but it is good to know.

However, seeing as I only have a quarter of a page, there is doubtless more to it than that. The author’s name is Matt Groening. What does this suggest? Matt is short for Matthew, which was one of the twelve disciples. Therefore, the name Matt Groening must have some religious affiliations, most likely with Christianity because that’s the only religion I know. Now let us examine the last name — Groening. Groening sounds like “groaning,” meaning Matt Groening is doubtless a depressed and angsty tormented soul who prays every night for God to kill him.

Now to the actual quote.

The snowmobile is obviously a representation of the relationship between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, or a creepy man and an innocent child, as any English major would know. Like a snowmobile, a relationship is cheaper than a car but more expensive than a bike. Also like a snowmobile, it can move very fast…or very s-l-o-w. It can also stop abruptly when it runs into something.

The tundra represents the great expanse of cold, steely hearts, most of which reside in Antarctica. So, the relationship races over the world at breakneck speed until it randomly flips over, much like things spontaneously combust. Boom! The relationship comes to a halt and you can neither move forward nor escape. Some equate this part with marriage. I equate it with your significant other explaining why he/she/it feels that there is nothing wrong with polygamy while also looking very cute.

Night, as usual, represents the apocalypse. The line, “at night, the ice weasels come,” indicates that the world will end when a tide of (rabid?) ice weasels comes over the horizon, or maybe the ice weasels symbolize our hidden hostilities, or maybe they symbolize one or more of my many broken dreams, or maybe they symbolize weasels...

My word limit is 500 words. I don’t know if you’re counting the words in the quote (or these words), but I am a positive person and am assuming you are, meaning I am an overachiever by three words. This concludes my English paper requirement.