Confessions Of A (Failed) Teen-aged Snow Bunny
Jun 09 '02 (Updated Jun 12 '02)
The Bottom Line A wonderful new playpen for the release of belly laughs, titters, guffaws and tee hees. You think maybe Dave Barry's got a female twin out there somewhere?
Although this account is 90% non-fiction, some elements are hard even for me to believe. It all started when I was 14 years old. My body had suddenly sprouted in all different directions that were apparently appealing to boys...
The year before, my Dad had remarried, blending our 3 teen-aged girls, with her 4 teenagers, (1 girl, 3 boys). They'd decided to invest in an up-and-coming ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains, near the California/Nevada border.
This place, Boreal Ridge, is real, but the events I'll share may be more of a nightmare.
With 7 teens smooshed into the back of a very uncool parental unit Station Wagon, we wound our way up from the Big Valley of Barkley fame to the fresher air, and frozen environs of Lake Tahoe. Arriving about the same time as the sun came up, we spent an hour arranging our gloves, hats, stretch pants, (era before actual ski togs with insulation), and so forth.
Smugly I dabbed a quarter jar of Mum cream deoderant on my nose. "It's the stuff surfers use at Santa Cruz, and you need it up here in the snow too, " I spoke with all the Lucy (of Charlie Brown) smarty-pants authority of oldest girl sibling. Other fingers reached dutifully into the same jar, never realizing Mum cream deoderant and zinc oxide were worlds apart chemically.
Thus armored, we trudged up to the ski lodge and were handed lunch money and a precious lift ticket. The parents had arranged for beginner ski lessons for the majority of us who were slip-sliding around the lodge steps, grabbing at each other, falling and generally looking like what we were-total newbies and flatlanders to boot.
Of course, as teen-aged girls, my sisters and I had heads on swivels, looking for cute teen boys at every opportunity. Two classes of instruction were available. One had a mean, bossy-looking girl pointing at a bunch of little kids and making them cry. One had a darling, Beatles' tressed hunk, with about 20 girls falling all over themselves and bending knees, practicing that all important beginner lesson: "The Stop".
Must I really tell you which line I gravitated toward? Mr. Tiger Beat Heart Throb blushed to his roots as 4 new glassy-eyed and slack-jawed young females slipped his way, and I'd like to imagine that was true regret in his voice, as he let us down gently, with a promise of another class opening up in an hour.
If I was smart at all, I would have proceeded straight to the little kid "Snow Play" section, or hustled myself off to the Lodge for a bracing hot cocoa after so much frightful exercise, but if I was smart...I wouldn't have this story to tell.
Grabbing my new step-sister Susan, I pointed at the cool "ride" going up the hill. Thinking this was something out of Disneyland, I was prepared to be entertained. We approached 2 more cute guys taking lift tickets and produced our own copies.
I'll never remember the exact words that followed, but somehow this tanned and earnest pair tried to dissuade us from boarding. Some question about our equipment, or lack of same, seemed at the crux of this controversy. Being girls, we had the advantage. Being girls we started crying when we didn't get our way, and being boys they shook their heads, threw up gloved hands and bid us have a fun trip.
Did psychics standing below the gangplank to the H.M.S. Titanic similarly bid toney travelers the same sort of fun trip? To this day I wonder, I truly do.
So there we were, enjoying the slightly rocking ski lift chair "ride" as we inched our way up the side of a Mighty Impressive Mountain, never dreaming of the horrors that awaited us around the next bend.
Suddenly we were at the top of the mountain, and a less than cute boy, (4 or more pimples), and another mean girl told us to get off. Right after doing major double-takes, the sort you see on Saturday morning cartoons accompanied by the sound affect: booooiiiing!
Obviously this was some kind of joke. Amazingly we were all thinking the same thing, though for different reasons. No way José, was I getting down from the suddenly comfortable little chair. I mean, there was this little ledge of trampled snow and rocks and then this, this cliff leading off to this sheer, sheer drop. It looked like a 90 degree angle, as I experienced my first bout of acrophobia.
Visions of the fall from Hitchcock's Vertigo's bell tower flashed through my horrified mind, and I adamantly refused to de-chair. Decades before the term extreme skiing became popular, here I was, a flatlander couch potato with sibling side kick, more clearly out of my element than a roach on a tanning bed.
Details escape me, but somehow the growing roar of disgruntled chair lift patrons below us threatened an avalanche and a hurried conference resulted in the admonishment to "hold on real tight" then the lift was advanced one position.
That looks so sedate, so placid as I read the black and white of what I've just written. Oh no, advancing the chair is like letting one side of a 4 inch thick steel bungie cord loose, after pulling it completely taut for good measure. Around the pivot we swung like greased weasels, and off of the chair I fell, dangling over the precipice, hanging on by one arm.
Well, one arm and an ID bracelet to put a proper point on it. I believe this was the same arm I'd practiced kissing the cute ski instructor below with, (don't ask!), then inadvertently stuck it against the frozen steel lift bar.
Yup. Well, so far the bond was holding, and my more athletic step-sister Susan was able to grab the back of my parka and miraculously haul me back up onto the violently rocking bench.
I faintly remember applause, then screaming as I looked at my injured arm, which had chosen this moment to work itself loose from its icy bonds. The fact that my purse, containing almost my entire Beatles' bubble gum trading card set and my best white lipstick, was lost far below must be saved for another story.
As we began our descent in relative serenity, I suddenly noticed how warm and comfy my ski lift seat had become.
I almost hated to get up. Except I was determined to kiss the snow beneath my feet when we reached level terrain. I guess that's why I pitched forward, (not being used to the bulbous chest swelling which had mysteriously appeared the summer before), and didn't hear any unusual sound affects except the "wumph" sound of my face impacting the snow at my feet.
Gathering together the shreds of my teenaged dignity, I trudged off toward the Ski School, with but one thing in mind. I shook off my step-sister, slip-walking almost a full step behind me, as she repeatedly attempted getting my attention. Whatever it was could wait, as we needed to get a spot in that next class, because a couple of semi-cute girls, (translation: 3 or less pimples), were edging forward, obviously trying to steal our spots!
Success! We had our precious places in the next class, and had a half hour to kill until then. Did that whole life-before-my-very-eyes debacle really happen so quickly? I would have said more like hours.
A few others from the chair lift came up and began smiling and pointing at me. Oh, I could dig the attention! I mean, I was totally brave, as groovy as they come and hey! Wait a minute. Why were those boys all going off behind me, and what was that icy breeze that now suddenly seemed to be freezing my, (formerly) stretch pants-encased buttocks?
Now don't tell a soul, okay? But apparently some sort of...liquid...had gotten onto the seat of just my side of the chair, and somehow froze my stretch pants to the seat, and then when I'd pitched forward in the snow when we'd finally, finally come down to earth...
Ack...stop! I can't go on. Suffice it to say, I never made it to that beginner class with the cute ski instructor. I spent the rest of the very long day in the lodge, sitting down, sipping hot cocoa, mulled cider and munching sour, bitter grapes as I thought of those semi cute girls flirting with my ski instructor in that snow bunny class.
And did I ever go back up to the snow, to Boreal Ridge or any other resort, you might ask. Well, yes, certainly, Constant Reader, but then I always sat in the lodge, reading or listening to music on headphones or attempting to figure out just how they made that excellent strudel, all the while communing with nature. Just not that close.
Never again!
*********************************************************
Thanks for taking time out of your busy life to read this comic bit, which I like to think as a nice change from my usual reviews. if you'd like more, please let me know. I got a million of 'em!
This one's dedicated to a real life former ski instructor, and all around cute guy, Sweeper, who is still more athletic in one little finger than I'll ever be...
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
kcfoxy
|
 - Top 200 |
|
Member: Casey Stewart
Location: West Coast Of Mars
Reviews written: 935
Trusted by: 643 members
About Me:
Save the Earth...it's the only planet with Chocolate!
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.