Throughout my entire life I have been desperately trying to conceal the fact that I am awful at all sports. During my school days my height always led to people telling me I should play basketball, without realizing that simple hand eye coordination is also a general requirement. I happen to lack any sort of skill or grace - if there is a sock on the floor, I will find a way to trip over it. If the wastebasket is 2 feet away, my empty coffee cup will still somehow miss. So for a while, much like Danny Zukko in Grease, I desperately searched for a sport that I could be decent at and get everyone off my back. This led to a series of shameful incidents.
Softball was okay when I was up to bat, but in the outfield I was an embarrassment to my team and my family. Basketball was simply ridiculous - "dribbling" is a word I have all but taken out of my vocabulary as something I should not be allowed to speak about, as I obviously have an unclear definition on what it actually entails. My poor mom and dad wasted an unknown amount of money for my best friend and I to take Jazz dance classes, but luckily saved some when they were the only parents that did not feel obligated to purchase the professionally filmed final dance routine, on the grounds that I single handedly ruined it. Gym classes allowed me to try my hand at field hockey and lacrosse, where I was assured by my friends that they were looking out for my best interest when they told me not to try out for the team. Volleyball I was surprisingly not bad at, but this was due to the fact that being on the volleyball team at my high school was the equivalent to being the losers at band camp, and once I found out I was supposed to wear our jerseys to class on game days I quickly dropped off the team in favor of whatever shred of social status I still had left. After that I attempted a swimming class but knew I was in trouble when I showed up in a bikini and everyone else was in speedos and swim caps. The instructor recommended the beginners class that met for an hour on Saturday mornings, which I'm fairly certain was for 5 year olds but didn't bother to find out since by that point I had been through enough. Just when I thought I should give up and take up something less physical like being able to predict with 100% accuracy the top ten videos on TRL on any given day, my dad decided that the whole family should start taking advantage of the fact that we lived in New Hampshire and learn to ski. This was the one thing I hadn't thought of! Sliding down a mountain on narrow plexi-glass planks seemed simple enough - this was my last chance to have a skill and I was going to give it my all.
Before we go any further let me just tell you that from day one I hated skiing. This was due a multitude of reasons, one of the prominent ones being that I never was dressed properly - Adidas sports socks under my boots, a tank top and a cardigan under my men's Gap windbreaker, and WalMart ski pants do not a toasty trip down a mountain make. We also never owned our own skis so I had to go through the rental process every single weekend, which always meant having to tell the cute guy working at the ski rental place how much I weigh and yes my feet are a women's size 9, but men's size 8 would be comfortable if you don't have it. However, I pushed through and went every weekend (i.e. my dad had bought season passes and made me), starting on the bunny slope and working my way up until skiing was actually something I could say I was pretty good at. I even went on a weekend skiing retreat with my cousin and her church group to a way more legit mountain than the one I had been learning on and genuinely held my own. There was a minor hiccup when I accidentally made a wrong turn and ended up at the top of a double black diamond and peed my snowsuit out of fear, but I ended up making my way down it safely so overall it was a triumph. I don't know why I had never thought of skiing before - it was the only sport where slipping and sliding was part of the game, and it seemed my uncoordination had met its match. Oh, how very wrong I was.
It was a typical Saturday at King Pine - the rinky dink ski resort my dad loved to buy season passes for due to its cheapness and close proximity to the hospital now that he was trying his hand at snowboarding. I had invited my friend Amy with me for the day, and we were having fun skiing trying to end up at the chairlift with the hot guy running it. His chairlift had the longest line of girls since King Pine was always severely lacking in cute boys - most people there were clearly from northern New Hampshire, which is not an attractive thing, literally or figuratively. I should say though that I was really in no position to judge, considering every item of clothing showing on me was from the men's department and instead of goggles I was wearing $5 knockoff Oakley's from a gas station. But that didn't stop me from trying so when my ski randomly fell off while getting on the lift and he had to stop the chairlift altogether to come up underneath me and put it back on my size 9 boot, I smiled down at him and thought "fate." The perfect "meet-cute". I dreamed that my next time around we would smile at each other and after that he would ask me to get hot chocolate on his break and then we would fall madly in love. Technically, part of that came true.
When we got to the top of the chairlift I realized how small New Hampshire is because I ran into two of my immediate cousins, Sam and Max. We decided to go on a few runs together and eventually ended up back at the Hot Guy Chairlift. We were next in line to get on when we realized they were 3 to a seat and not 4, so Max scooted up to get on the first one by himself. He was the youngest and I felt bad making him go all alone, so at the last second I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to show my hot chairlift guy how nice I am to children, and pushed myself forward to get on the lift with Max. I knew that I didn't have much time but the distance to Max was a mere 4 feet, and if I pushed hard I was sure I could make it. I saw the chairlift coming around the bend and knew that every second counted to make sure it didn't hit me, but I was almost there when...the chairlift zoomed around and collided with my side, knocking my feet out from under me and flinging me over into a ditch. Both my skis came off, one pole went flying, and I landed on my back like a bug with my legs and arms in the air. My hot guy had to stop the chairlift for a solid 5 minutes while he helped me up, got both my skis and helped me put them back on, found my pole, and got me situated to actually get on the chairlift. It was miserable. Max was 12 and he looked embarrassed for me. Once I was seated and the chairlift started going again, I heard my hot guy laughing with Sam and Amy as we rode away.
When we got to the top I told everyone that there was no way I was taking that chairlift again for the rest of the day, and after they made fun of me for a while they understood. So I tried to put it out of my mind as I got on with the day, thankful that we only had time for a couple more runs left. Finally it was time to head back to the lodge, and we started to plan our route. I soon realized with horror that the only way we could get back would be to take the dreaded Hot Guy Chairlift, and as I skied towards it I had a minor panic attack, picturing him stopping the chairlift again to help me on it without trouble. But as I got closer in line I realized that the Gods were finally helping me out - there was a new and far less attractive man now running the chairlift - my hot guy must have been on a break. I finally relaxed and made sure that it was clear that Sam and Max were riding together and that I was going with Amy. Our turn came to get on and Amy and I skied up to correct place without a hitch and waited for the chairlift to come around. It was then that I saw him - my hot guy sitting at the front by the new chairlift operator with a pretty blonde girl his own age. I immediately looked away and hoped he wouldn't see me. Then I thought for a moment that maybe he wouldn't even remember me - this was after all a learning resort and people probably fall on the chairlift every day. Maybe it wasn't even that bad. So as the chairlift came around and I got on it like a normal person and at least proved myself competent, I took the chance to look over at him. We locked eyes and I thought for a moment that maybe without my sunglasses on he really didn't even know who I was...and then I saw him nudge the girl next to him and whisper "thats the one I was telling you about."
I never went to King Pine again, and no longer pretend I like to ski.
