THE TRAINING WHEELS ARE OFF, AND MY BIKE FELL OVER PUSHING THE BANANA SEAT DEEP INTO MY ASS

So the snow is finally getting it's act together and getting the fuck outta town. I'm quite thrilled by this, really. I get to go skiing this weekend and hurl myself along the edge of some precipice at high velocity all while trying to make sure I don't hit a mogul, go flying into the air and come down with a broken neck or a concussion--this is how my last ski trip ended years ago, save the broken neck--while everyone whose anything but Irish will be downtown getting pissed with everyone who is Irish. Maybe we'll have green snow on the mountain...

What would that be like? At this hour my mind can only conjure up gooey, snotty pictures in which the toothpicks I'm strapped to get mired down in that green muck. I naturally flip foward an dunk my head deep into the goo, and come out looking like something my cat might puke out of its nose when it has a sinus infection--if I had a cat...alas, poor Yorick (my cat) was eaten by the neighbouring (yes, yes, it's the U thingy again, live with it) old woman who smells like embalming fluid. Honest, she does.

So why am I going skiing this weekend if I smashed myself silly last time? I'm trying to get over a deep rooted problem I have with sport in general. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sports, and even some team sports, but I have this tendency to stop playing particular ones after they've resulted in some kind of physical injury (loss of arm--skiing, leg fracture--skiing, broken neck--tennis, eye puncture--lawn darts) or death--the tax game. Now while I realize that throwing scissors at each other like one would throw lawn darts doesn't actually qualify as lawn darts, but I considered it a sport at the time...after all it's neither fun nor a game until someone loses an eye.

The last time I went skiing I seem to recall being around the time that I was in CEGEP. We'd driven up with a bunch of people, and were condemned to travel to Mont Sutton in Gordon's car (which was about the size of a football field and comfortably slept 10). Gordon being quite the lunatic that he was enjoyed his favorite driving pastime of looking for the cassette that had fallen underneath the dash (his car was so old you could actually do that). Driving there, the most terrifying thing I experienced was Gordon saying "Someone take the wheel," as he dove beneath the dashboard while travelling at 150 kilometres an hour...this might have been vaguely amusing had not everyone dove for the steering wheel. The longboat swerved off the highway and into the ditch between our "outbound" highway and the "inbound" highway. Being 8 of us in the car, the 7 poor sods who weren't driving were made to push the car out of the ditch and back onto highway; it was at this juncture that Gordon decided it would be fun to drive to the next rest area and wait for us to show up and beat the tar out of him. Thankfully the rest of the journey up to Mont Sutton was peaceful because I fell into a deep slumber. This--I figured--was the only real way to ensure I'd get to the mountain without having a heart attack...it was either that or at least I'd die asleep, and I could live with that.

The day of skiing was brilliant. Most enjoyable, back in the day, I was a pretty ok, but not brilliantly sexy skier. Good enough that I didn't hurt myself, but hardly great enough to teach anything other than hitting the person skiing next to you with your ski pole. Brilliant that is--

UNTIL WE DECIDED TO DO TRICKS...

And by WE I mean a guy named AL who peer-pressured the shit out of me to join in the fun with the 7 expert skiers on the trip. How could I say no? It was a run at death I could hardly refuse...hardly refuse--what the fuck was I thinking? My anus had clenched itself to the point where I was going to be constipated until the millennium (thank god for that--I can freely shit again...and let me tell you it's just so very lovely...consistency is good, flavour unique, smell robust...but I digress.) Already as we were on the ski lift my bowels had calcified the shit in my lower colon...nothing was getting out so if there had been little gnomes looking for an exit down there, they were going to have had searched elsewhere.

Of course I was sitting next to Al on the chairlift. Why? Because he was a wanker and purely enjoyed taunting me (as I was smaller) and getting off on the fact that he'd let me know if the jumps were safe for me. Wanker...WANKER WANKER CANTANKEROUS WANKING WANKER OF EVIL SMELLING LOVE JUICE...he's still the same, but I don't spend much time with him. In the last 5 years I think I've seen him 6 or 9 times...not bad...he still invites me to things every now and again, but I usually fake injury or death. I think he's becoming suspicious since he now believes that everyone in my family is dead, poisoning the atmosphere with the ashes and smoke from their funeral pyres...


Finally we make it to the top...an agonizing ride up, mute of intellectual stimulation (Al was babbling on). I know the heat is on because I'm sweating; I know I'm terrified because I'm trying to shit myself on purpose; and I know I've gotta get a move on because I can feel Al's foot in my ass.

We start.

The first jump is pretty slick. Al does a nice daffy and lands perfectly. He instructs me as well as anyone can instruct me on doing ski jumps from 30 feet away, and I'm off. Now don't get me wrong, I can ski (or at least used to be able to) and I was impressed with the way I handled myself on that first jump; it was clean, it was precise, it was total fluke.

Bang I landed very safely on the ground; for some reason it was at that time that alternate lyrics for Men Without Hats' Safety Dance something along the lines of this:

The Skiing Stance

We can ski if we want to, we can land on our behinds

We can twist our knees, and break our skis

But we don't mind


We can ski, everything's outta control

We can ski, hey look out for that pole...


We can ski

Oh we can ski

Oh we can ski


(Ad Nauseum--Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera for those who are intelligence challenged [i.e. fucking idiots for those of you who are...erm...fucking idiots])

Jeez just listening to the original Saftey Dance freaks me out a bit. Not be cause it's bad, that's not really it's fault, the song is terminally 80's and so was everything else back then. I really feel bad for the strippers who were peeling to this tune...I mean the one that haven't o.d.'d on something by now must be thinking that their lives are pretty good. What could be worse than stripping to this song? No really, think about that and let me know.

The only thing I can think of is my vagina being on fire. But really...

So I'm thinking that I'm pretty hot shit and I'm starting to get cocky enough to get the hand of daffy's and other assorted stupid aerial tricks that I shouldn't be doing.

Al drags us all of donw a particularly icey area and one by one they all fly off the jumps and land perfectly making me feel like a star, because of course I can ski EXACTLY like them..NOT! Yep I hit the jump go into a daffy, it goes all wrong.

That was one of those moments that while I was in the air I contemplated life, the universe and everything, had flashes of Right, Said Fred pass between my ears--I'm too sexy for this life, too sexy for this life. Life's gonna leave me--and knew whole heartedly that the landing was going to be bad. What was even worse was the fact that I knew from the second that my left foot lagged back on the jump that I was going DOWN.

The end result was less vertically motivated than it was horizontally motivated, and let me tell you that tree hurt like a motherfucker. That is still one of the most painful impacts that I've ever experienced...and I can say this because I've experienced many.

I lost my left ski and my left pole, and managed to strand myself some 10 feet above the snow. How the fuck did that happen? I don't know. Al the wanker that he is/was (not 'tiswas for all you people how were condemend to the sodomy of growing up in England with me) laughed until I started to bleed. Some how I came down from the tree (most likely fell) and then lightly skied my ass to the chalet where I would sit looking slightly less retarded and dejected than I actually was, waiting for the 7 ski masters to haul me off to the car.

When they showed up I was convinced by Al to get back on the hill for the final run. The Chinese Downhill. Now as rude and offensive as the nomenclature sounds this was something that we stole from the Hot Dog...The Movie...stupid stupid shit...but as classic and necessary as the entire Porky's and Police Academyserieses, or Snowboard Academy--I was indirectly involved with this film...not sure I should be badmouthing it, but I wasn't actually a paid member of crew and / or staff...

So up I went again, and I really wasn't feeling all that well. When we got to the top however, I felt that the brisk air had cured what ailed me. I was ready to bomb down the hill and make it out unscathed.

For those who have not seen Hot Dog...The Movie

The chinese downhill--rude and offensive as the title is--consists of as many people as possible throwing themselves down the hill as fast as possible. The winner is the person who makes it to the bottom. Anyone who fall is disqualified, and anyone who gets killed is also disqualified. Naturally as part of the rules there are no set rules...and that means pushing, shoving throwing, punching, biting, licking, sucking, coaxing, fucking, and rubbing are definintely allowed.

Well I got pushed, shoved, throw, punched, bitten, licked, sucked, coaxed, fucked, and rubbed right into the ski lift, and that was the moment when I should have said "Charlie?" but I was too unconscious for that.


.


I wake up at Al's apartment because they were too wankerish to take me to a hospital because they wanted to get back to his place so they could drink heavily. I wake on the floor in a pile, and not feeling all to well...three beers later and I'm puking on everything: Al's TV, Al's girlfirend, Al's toilet, Al's brand new carpet, in Al's bathtup, in Al's sink, on Al's 360k Apple Unidrive, and when I was able to control and direct my vomit, in Al's spaghetti sauce pot....ok I did that one on purpose....

My father was eventually summoned, I was hauled off to the local hospital where they stripped me, deloused me, probed my anus for crack, and told me I had a light concussion and that I should be more careful whe skiing...no shit woman.

Hospital card collection +1...

The rest of the evening was spent entirely in bed, and face down in my own puke. God what a trip that was...



And it's been since then that I've strapped a pair of toothpicks to my feet. My live in girlfriend and I found a great $ deal on skiing this weekend with the YMCA nearby, and we're going to go. She's an avid skier, and hasn't been skiing this winter most likely due to my apathy over the whole skiing thing. So I hope you all get it now...

So that's it.
I'm committed.
That's where I'm headed.

She must be one hell of a woman to get me back on skis.

That accident happend in 1988. I'm still having flashbacks, and nightmares about all things with rotating knives.

Damn, she *is* one hell of a woman.

We're gonna have fun!

Right?


[PLEASURE]