Skiing with Hitler

I hate skiing. I used to love skiing, but now, I hate it. It is one of the most terrifying experiences I have ever had and I would rather wring a cute little bunny’s neck then go down another snow covered hill on a pair of glorified chopsticks.  I loved the idea when I was packing for the weekend, then it was fun. I grinned and bragged about how I would be skiing over spring break, oh how much fun I was going to have. Oh you’re stuck on campus? Poor you… Oh irony.

Do you know what’s between North Carolina and West Virginia? Because the answer is not humans, there aren’t any. Trust me, we drove for eight hours and all I saw were llamas, horses, and cows. We played “spot the human” and came up with about three in three hours.

We wrestled dinner out of the last town before Snowshoe Mountain. You had to call it a town because it had more than one traffic light. We got subs from a Subway in a gas station. Their menus were leftover from the 90’s, just like the server’s hair. The entire gas station really. The walls reeked with the dying embers of grunge and tattoo chokers. Oh, another thing, the women’s bathroom had two toilets. Literally, it was a room with two toilets in the middle of it. I don’t know if they forgot the doors or if it’s just how they roll in West Virginia, but I pee alone.

As we drove up the mountain, the misty rain turned to thick rain and as we spindled our way through patches of leftover ice, the thick rain turned into obese snowflakes. We spent most of the night unpacking and playing Wii, and outside, the slopes plotted their evil under the silent falling snow.

I woke up the next morning earlier than everyone to cook breakfast. That isn’t important, fast-forward to post-breakfast. Everyone was getting dressed for battle. I pulled out my bright pink ski-bibs (don’t ask) to wear over my fleece pants. I could tell right away… we had a problem. I scuttled quickly into the bathroom. I first wore these bibs the when I went skiing four years before and then they had been baggy. 

I wore them again two years before and they were pretty fitted. 

Now, I looked like a tall bright pink Vienna sausage. 

Now, I knew I had gained weight, Taco Bell is a jealous mistress, but—no I decided not to think about it. The important thing now was to save face. I pulled on my ski jacket, and it blocked out the worst of it. I toddled out of the bathroom with my best poker face. Now, would I be able to sit down?

I stared at the couch, how was one supposed to go about sitting when bending in the middle was, well … inhibited. In the end, I squared up my backside with the couch, checked over both my shoulders, and fell backward; SUCCESS! That is I succeeded in sitting, but I had to lean back against the rearranging of my internal organs. It was like that all the way to the rental store, the shuttle, and the locker room. I puffed along and decided that the hard look at my diet would happen soon… very soon.

It was in this state that I arrived at the slopes were I found the first bunny hill, ha, bunny hill my butt. The thing was not flat enough to be called a bunny hill; it was a windy steep slope with cliffs into trees to the right, and sparsely spaced pillars and a mountainside to the left. Not great options. You see, when I ski, I like to, I don’t know, be in control of what’s happening to me. That means I like to be able to slow down when I want to. Simple request right?

To slow down you are supposed to do one of two things: snow plough or weave. I know how to snow plough; you basically just create a V with your skis (closed-side downhill). Weaving involves turning. I …have not quite mastered that. Let me rephrase, I haven’t figured out how to turn when I’m not going sixty miles per hour and weeping like a baby. So when I first put on my skis and started my gentle but unstoppable keel down the mountain, I did what a sensible person would. I panicked.

I still don’t understand why, I’ve skied before, I’ve loved it, but that time I was scared out of my brain into a near permanent snow plough. I clung to the side farthest away from the cliff side and slid forward, much against my will. My friend’s parents skied along beside me; they were old pros with their own equipment and everything. They coaxed me down the hill like I was a spooked horse, and that wasn’t exactly far off.  They tried telling me to turn, “Weave and it will be slower!” I still don’t believe them. When I tried, I usually ended up careening away down the middle of the slope and screaming to my fellow skiers to get the hell out of dodge before sampling another mouthful of snow bank. After half an hour, we came to the last stretch well in time to be looped by the rest of our families.

The last stretch was a hill. A hill. I couldn’t believe there was an earthly force to get me down that thing. I’ve never wanted to not do something so much. If I could have hit a reset, delete, or escape button, I would have, but there was nothing, just me and a mother trucking mountain. My friend’s father was the only one with me now, the mother decided to ski ahead and show me how to get down, not that it helped, but it was nice that she tried. And, I am ashamed to admit it… but I felt tears starting to slide out of my nose and eyes. I was officially, a giant, 20 year old weeping Vienna sausage. “Oh I’m going to have so much fun over spring break!”… Irony, you son of a biscuit-eating bass-fisher.

I hate to cry in front of people.

 I hate it more than skiing and Hitler.

I hate it more than Hitler on skis.

Hitler skiing.

Hitler skiing down the side of a mountain made of defenseless kittens while chasing blind puppies.

I hate crying in front of people.

We stood there for five minutes. Me trying everything not to cry and him trying to eek me down, what must have been to him, a very small hill. When he saw that I was not skiing down that mountain for love, money, or dignity, he tried to show me how to climb down, sideways. That was even scarier, but I did it.I fiddled my stupidly extended feet like violin bows down about five feet of mountain. I was embarrassed beyond belief as tiny five and four year olds skittled past me on teeny-tiny skis, their proud parents in close pursuit.

Well, I looked a right idiot standing there in bright pink bibs, so I made a command decision.

“Screw this.”

I ploughed that mountain, and I mean that in every sense. I welded my legs into a snow plough, and I stuck there. I felt the rickety shake of uneven snow as I lunged into the white abyss. At the end of the hill there was a small “Slow” sign stuck up to remind the panicking skier that they’re about to take out a small pack of people waiting for lifts. I wanted to yell at it, “Darn it, I’m trying to go slow!” I ended up planting backwards; I don’t know how, but one minute I was looking at a white ground and the next there was a lot of grey sky… and something else. I felt a strange breeze I knew I shouldn’t be feeling. I dropped my head down at for the briefest of moments, and caught the sight of my red plaid pants in an inconveniently placed pink-framed window. The Vienna sausage had finally popped her casing.

My friend’s father helped pick me up and we glided (he did anyway) towards the lift. I boarded the lift in silence, the tears brimming. I wouldn’t think about it. I wouldn’t. I made it back to the top of the mountain where our little group stood, waiting for me to get back from my hour-long bunny hill. I still wasn’t thinking of anything, my mind was mercifully blank. I asked for the locker combination and skied toward my locker. After a minute, my dad followed, carrying his skis. “So we need to get you some new bibs…” The damage must have been worse than I thought.

I power walked to my lobby and mashed the elevator button, but the light didn’t light up. I pressed it a couple of times before I noticed the key slot. Why do they put those there? I hate those kinds of elevators. When I finally made it inside, I was joined by an older guy, who promptly how I was doing. “Ohm=, I’m doing fine Mr. Old Man, I just ripped my pants open at the bottom of a bunny hill after crying in front of a couple of random strangers, do you know anything about Adolf Hitler?” I just nodded and said fine. I wanted to be alone for the water works the size of Old Faithful that I felt coming.

He turned out to be the maintenance worker coming to fix our shower head. How perfect.  I walked into my brother’s room (on the opposite side of our apartment), where there was a full length mirror. The damage was bad. I had a slit the length of my backside where the poor middle seam had just given up. I don’t really blame it… but I’m not going to send it a Christmas card, if you know what I mean. I peeled the bibs away and tossed them to the ground with my jacket. I collapsed on the bed and as I heard the woody click of main door as the old man left, I began to sob.

I cried for the terror of skiing. I cried for my split pants. I cried over the homework I hadn’t done yet, the papers I hadn’t written, the friends at home I neglected, the ones at school that I took for granted, the late nights I ran out for fast food, the twenty plus pounds I had wedged into my body. I cried for every frustration that I didn’t allow myself to deal with because I would look weak and scared. Well, I looked pretty weak and scared on that hill so, damn it, I was going to think about it and have myself a cry.

It’s a lot less pathetic than it sounds. In retrospect, it’s funny. I ended up going back out there and beating the crap out that hill. Almost as much as the crap it beat out of me. But the point is that something is only stronger than you if you let it be. I ate a lot of frozen humble pie that spring break, but I did it with the most fantastic poker face and new pair of black bibs ever. If you want a solid piece of advice from someone who's face planted more than just metaphorically, I say to you: Always get back on the horse, even if you have to tase it first.