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Jan 09
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Winter sports have never been my thing, basically because it’s cold and I have, um, thermal issues. I do enough damage to myself trying to drag all of my left feet across dry, flat surfaces without tripping over stray molecules of air. Put me anywhere below freezing, and I’ll find the only patch of black ice within a three mile radius.
Growing up in Arizona’s Sun Valley offered few opportunities for things like sledding, ice skating, or skiing. But I have many fond memories of sipping hot chocolate while gazing out the windows at the distant snow-encrusted mountains, snuggled warmly underneath my favorite blanket as temperatures plummeted to the mid-50s.
It was a sunny, December day, 14 years ago, when my then-husband and a college friend of ours finally talked me into going skiing. He’d been an avid, competitive skier for years, and he was excellent.
“Let’s go cross-country skiing. You’ll have a great time.” His eagerness to introduce me to his beloved sport was cute. I had no idea what cross-country skiing was. It sounded taxing. And full of dangerous air molecules.
”I hate the cold.” Especially wet snow. Particularly when it slithers down the inside of your ankle. “And I prefer to avoid hurtling my body down slick surfaces toward large, immovable objects.”
“We’ll stick to flat trails,” countered our friend, Stacey, who was edging toward the “traitor” category. “Mike can take the front, I’ll take the back. You’ll be perfectly safe in the middle.” Didn’t she know that women were supposed to stick together when facing a male adversary?
I pulled my ace. “I’m eight months pregnant. This is not a good idea.” Actually, it was a fantastically bad idea. But, and I’m not sure how it happened or why really, an hour later, trumped and wary, I was crammed into a set of gigantic snow pants standing gingerly on thin strips of fiberglass, holding on to some flimsy looking sticks. Thus I added to the overwhelming evidence that when you’re in your 20 somethingorother’s you should never make life-altering decisions.
True to their promises, we stayed on flat terrain until we’d nearly reached the end of our circuit. By that time, the two of them were itching to race to a hill not far ahead, and they left me and my enormous belly behind, carefully balanced on two thin boards and two flimsy sticks. They promised a quick return.
I snaked along a densely wooded section, carefully keeping my tummy-planet balanced. I broke through the trees expecting to find my husband and my traitor, but found only a broad expanse of snow ahead of me, loaded with eleventy-billion air molecules.
The trail ran closely parallel to a road, dipping sharply toward more trees ahead. Road on one side, a field of pristine snow on other, the trail narrowed, rising several feet above the surrounding terrain. I headed up the trail because, well, there were no couches available.
First time skier that I was, and wielding 30 pounds of enormous, jutting abdomen in front of me (I hadn’t seen my feet in months) it’s not surprising that I missed the hard, icy coating along the top of the rise. My tenuously balanced belly tipped over.
Sliding sideways off the trail, I landed not-quite-vertically in the heavy, wet snow lying beneath the quarter inch of ice crust that covered it. One ski on, one ski off, I was totally unable to move anything beneath my armpits. I still had one ski pole in the snow; I clung to the other one as if it would magically save me.
I tried to use one of my flimsy sticks to dig myself out, which really would have worked better if it had some kind of shovelly thing on the end.
When all else fails, panic!
The two of them were at least a light-year ahead, but I guess they heard me sobbing and crying out for help through the time dilation and came back my way. Once they stopped laughing hysterically, my husband and the traitor dug part of me free, and then hauled the rest of me out of the snow bank. It was a lot like silently popping the cork out of a wine bottle, only without the promise of fun.
We finished the trail with one in front of me and one behind me, just in case. Somehow they survived the death beams and got me into the car and home safe. Where I knew for a fact there was a couch.
I vowed to never ski again. And I didn’t. Until that time some pushy guy friend of mine, who’s now my husband, talked me onto the bunny slope.
