When I was 16 I fell off a horse three times in a row. I wish I could say the horse threw me. She didn’t. I wish I could say the horse was moving. She wasn’t. Twice I tried to get on this ancient, gentle nag and I fell off both times; the third time I severely injured my right hip and I have never been near a horse since. This was the day that my mantra switched from ”Try, try again” to ”Quit while you’re ahead.”
I thought of this incident a lot on when I went to Breckenridge, CO with my sister. She and her husband had booked a ski vacation, but a pressing work concern made it impossible for him to go. Since the trip was non-refundable, I went with her instead.
I am not really the athletic type, and after one look up at a slope that may well have been Everest I almost lost my breakfast. That was when we met Lars, the ski instructor who came with the package deal. Lars was about six-five with blue eyes, blonde hair and perfect teeth. He also had six pack abs; I know this because when he got heated up skiing he took his shirt off and skied shirtless, which I thought was a little over the top. Next to Lars I immediately felt short and chubby and swarthy.
“That’s the bunny slope,” he told me, never taking his eyes off my sister who, Like Lars, is also blonde, and a size 2. Lars was openly amused that someone my age could not ski and mentioned that old dogs don’t usually try to learn new tricks. He explained that we would take the “poma” to the top of the bunny slope. This is essentially a rigid disc at the end of a long stick tethered to a moving cable. The idea is that you straddle the pole, sit back on the disc and are pulled up the mountain. I was immediately skeptical but Lars pointed out that grandmothers, toddlers and amputees were all effortlessly ascending the summit on this device, waving merrily as they passed.
When it was my turn, I casually hitched my leg over the poma, waved merrily to my sister and immediately caught my ski in the snow. This caused me to lose my balance and twist violently so that the poma pulled me up the mountain, shrieking, by my testicles. Thus began my ski trip.
I spent the morning being dragged up the bunny slope and rolling back down, occasionally taking a toddler or a grandmother with me. Several times, Lars had to come rescue me when I found myself sprawled face first in the snow, unable to move because my legs were in positions that would impress a Vegas showgirl. Meanwhile, my sister was whizzing past, waving merrily as she went.
After lunch, Lars decided it was time to tackle a ”real mountain,” so my sister and I were put into a chair lift. We were instructed that at the top of the mountain we were to “simply” push off the lift, land on our feet and ski down to the trail. This sounded simple enough but at the apex of the mountain when my sister expertly disengaged herself from the lift I didn’t — so I kept going, back down to the base, where I waved merrily to the surprised attendants, and then back up the mountain.
This had skiing beat by a mile and the views were incredible. I took three revolutions and was just making myself comfortable when I passed Larswho jumped up, grabbed my leg, and physically pulled me off the lift. This is when I curled into a fetal position and covered my head to protect myself from the other skiers who were trying to get off the lift and not crush me.
Eventually Lars pulled me to my feet, dragged me to the start of the trail and sternly ordered me down the mountain. As I looked down a slope I hesitated briefly, and, annoyed at last, he gave me a hard shove that knocked me off my feet; this caused me to slide down the mountain on my back, arms and legs akimbo. It was a long way down but at the base, miraculously, I was still ambulatory and mere yards from the lodge.
I took this as a sign, and hours later when my sister found me behind a hot buttered rum she asked me what happened. “I quit while I was ahead,” I said.