To Ski or Not to Ski, That is the Question
I was actually able to put off this last commitment for about ten years. But when he decided it was time for the kids to learn, I was forced to take the plunge, as well. I quickly discovered that the critical part of skiing is not actually skiing… it’s learning how to fall without killing yourself, and then getting back up again. The falling part is pretty easy. Getting up again, however, is about as impossible as taking up this sport when you’re 40 in the first place.
Assuming, that you’re bound by a marriage vow as I am, you now face the second element of becoming a skier: learning the lingo. For instance, on my first ski outing last year, I didn’t just fall, I was wiped out by a knuckle dragger, had a yard sale and did a face plant. In non-skier terms, this means I was knocked down by a snow-boarder, my skis and poles went flying, and I landed face first in the snow. Of course, if you’re skiing with your squad (ski buddies) and you bail (wipe out), to them, it’s a photo op (when someone else has a yard sale.
Got all that?
Essential to the whole shebang is your ski outfit. Between goggles, gators, pants and poles, you could send your kid to college for a year on what it costs to put together a whole ski ensemble. However, if you get the look just right, and the lingo down pat, you don’t even actually have to go on the slopes at all. Stick a lift ticket on your jacket, rub a little snow on your face, and, voila; everyone will think you’re a skier.
…That is, of course, unless you have a kid to expose your ruse.
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“Hey mom, want to ski the moguls with me?”
“Moguls?” I questioned. “You mean like Warren Buffet?”
He rolled his eyes at me.
“Hey mom, want to ski the moguls with me?” said my son.
“Moguls?” I questioned. “You mean like Warren Buffet?”
“No, duh. Moguls are the bumps on the expert slopes,” he said impatiently.
“Do you go over them?”
“No, around them.”
“I think I’ll go way around them, like, on a totally different slope,” I told him.
“Oh, come on Mom, don’t be a dweeb.”
Even I, ski-illiterate that I am, knew what this meant.
“I may be a dweeb, but at least I’ll be a living dweeb,” I said, and hoisted myself up to go to the bathroom.
Now, if walking on dry land when you are completely ski-ensembled is no easy task, going to the bathroom is darn near impossible. Twenty minutes later, zipped, buckled and tucked in all the right places, I was finally ready to leave the ladies room. But just as I got to the exit, the door came flying open. As I lurched forward to save myself from being knocked out by the door, my boots slipped on the slushy floor, and I had a yard sale.
I limped back to our table in the lodge and my husband came rushing over to see what had happened.
“What do you call it when you wipe out in the ski lodge bathroom,” I asked him miserably.
He grinned. “Stupid.”
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