Thursday, April 30, 2009

You Can't Make Me - Part Two

“It’ll be fun and I will totally teach you everything!” squealed my friend Monique.

Her church youth group was going on a skiing trip and she had invited me along. But I didn’t ski. The mere thought of swooshing down a snowy/ice mountain sent shivers down my spine. Remember, I wasn’t an athletic girl. Monique was. She played soccer, she hated make-up, and she was the only girl in high school who changed the oil in her truck. Yeah, truck. She was that kind of girl.

“I’ll think about it,” I replied knowing full well that I wasn’t going to ski. No way. No how.

“Just think of all the cute boys! I think Dan is going…” she left off mysteriously.

That little tidbit of information changed the equation. Cute boys, toasty fire, snow ball fights, hot cocoa and the handsome Senior, Dan (whom every girl in high school loved) made me reconsider. Maybe this ski thing wasn’t a bad idea after all. Monique knew she had me and flung a pair of snow pants at me. My fate was sealed.

I never saw the toasty fire or tasted the cocoa. I did get a glimpse of the cute guys (and Dan) when we rode the bus up to the mountain and I had a stellar view of the first aid station. I had spent all of fifteen minutes on skis and found myself strapped to a gurney which wound its way to first aid. I spent the next four hours with the ski patrol (all rather cute men I might add) while they searched for my “friends”.

After gathering my rental skis, poles, boots, etc. Monique told me I should head to the bunny slope. She’d “catch me later”. It was sometime later, actually. She’d had a delicious day, skiing with DDDaaannn, while I nursed a throbbing and possibly sprained knee.

The following Monday found me, knee cinched into a brace with cane in hand, standing before Mrs. Warren. I think things would have gone much better if I hadn’t been grinning from ear to ear. In fact, she may have let me off of PE duty if it hadn’t been for my bright and cheerful resignation of my sad, sad, sad fate of missing two to four weeks of PE.

“Don’t worry. You can make it up after you recover. All of it." she stated flatly.

I’m pretty sure she rubbed her hands together and barked out an evil laugh as she revealed my fate. What she didn’t know was that I had an ace. It was one that I’d never played before and I wasn’t 100% sure it would work, but I was willing to bet my life on the fact that not only would I not make up days missed but Mrs. Warren would never look in my direction again.

The ace? You’ll never believe it…

My Mother.

To be continued…

2 comments:

Susan J. Reinhardt said...

Oh, Annie! I can relate to your athletic aversion. The last word in the English language anyone would ever use to describe me is, "athletic."

Blessings,
Susan :)

Roo said...

LOL... I went skiing ONCE with a brand new group of co-workers. I had been employed with the company for 2 weeks and the CFO took the accounting department skiing as a reward for a good year-end and audit. Never ski'd before. Got into class and about 15 minutes into it I fell backwards and hit my head on the ice. Literally knocked myself out for about a minute. Came to and had no idea where I was, how I got there or who I was with. It all came back to me in a couple of minutes. I gave it one more try and fell again. Spent the rest of the day in the lodge and the shops. Had sore neck (neck brace and all) for about a week. I CAN SO TOTAL RELATE TO THE LACK OF ATHLETICISM.

Roo :-(