A Tale of Two Skiers

I am not sportif.

I have an uneasy relationship with balls of any kind (particularly those used in some form of team sport), likely due to a soccer ball to the face one ill-fated –30 degree February day when I had the misfortune of being the goalie.

Team sports make me quake in fear, not only because I am always picked last, but because running around in confusion, getting sweaty, and not having a hot clue what is going on is the stuff of nightmares for this bookish perfectionist.

Individual sports are only slightly better, and then only because the only person I have to measure myself against is me. But when said measurement became the only “C” for miles on the ol’ report card (and then only because my gym teachers felt sorry for me and bumped me up for “participation”), the return on the investment has always seemed rather less than my input would warrant.

So I never understood people who voluntarily did sportsy things. Like swimming. Running (oooo – word-eating time!). Baseball leagues.

Worst of all was skiing. I mean, it makes no sense. It’s outside. In winter. And it’s fast. What on earth could someone possibly like about it?

Well, that “someone” happened to be The Boyfriend of my youth, and despite a disastrous experience with skiing of the water variety and an only passing acquaintance with skiing of the cross-country variety, I let him persuade me to try the downhill variety.

It was another –30 degree February day. The Boyfriend, me, one of my BFFs, and another guy (who maybe wanted to be my BFF’s boyfriend or maybe it was the other way around or maybe I’ve just watched too many Days of Our Lives episodes) woke up at 5 am to drive for hooooouuuuuurs to some Manitoba ski place (can’t remember the name. I think it may have had “ass” in it).

We had the slopes to ourselves (probably because it was minus a billion degrees) and the hills were rock-hard ice. My BFF, also a virgin skier, was soon hurtling down black diamond runs, screaming with glee, while I was gamely trying the bunny hill.

The Boyfriend did his best, but it’s not easy to demonstrate skiing when you yourself are using a snowboard. He talked me through it, and I went about five feet. Then I decided to go a bit higher.

Now some hills in Manitoba might be big enough/cool enough for a chair lift, but not this one. It had a T-bar, which is essentially a tow rope with planks of wood.

The idea, I’m told, is to stand there and let the plank of wood hit you in the aforementioned a$$ and then propel you along as you balance on your skis.

Of course, I was told this after the fact.

After, in fact, I had already tried to sit down.

Apparently, T-bars are not actually meant for sitting. They can’t take the weight.

Apparently, if you try to sit down on a T-bar, you will hear a great deal of crashing and clunking, some scraping as the wooden plank ravages your body, and a final *thonk* as the bar slams up under your chin on its way by.

Apparently, it is also not a good thing to have one’s tongue between one’s teeth when this happens.

Bleeding and wiping tears, I disentangled my skis and poles, worked to become upright, and declared:

That’th IT! Thkiing ith NOT for me!

And my illustrious skiing career ended with some wadded up toilet paper soaking up the blood from my tongue while I waited out the rest of the day in the chalet.

Fast forward 20 years:

Don’t let the picture fool you – she is amazing! She’s had only two formal lessons and she’s already skiing like a champion. She went out with The Husband last weekend and her BFF’s dad (himself a very good skiier) was marveling at her abilities.

Of course, she gets a real chairlift. Perhaps I, too, could have been Lindsey Vonn-in-the-making if it weren’t for a T-bar one fateful day.

A full day’s skiing + warm car ride + Mom Teddy = sweetness.

(A picture from a previous weekend. The Boy is following in his father’s footsteps and tried snowboarding. He only did one lesson, so he still needs to learn how to actually put both feet on the board. But he’ll get there!)