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Here’s another random memory that popped into my head. I’ve been skiing once. Way back in the 1990s, my cousin and I went up to Killington, Vermont. The word on the street was that Killington was the best skiing on the East Coast, though it didn’t compare to anything out west. How could it? I have no idea whether that’s true, but that’s what we heard, so we went up there. Mike had been skiing before, so after one run down the bunny slope, he told me, “You’re never going to learn unless you push yourself, so go to the next slope up right now.”
So, I moved over to the next most difficult slope, while Mike went to the harder ones. So, here’s the thing. I didn’t have a ton of disposable income, and I had never been skiing, so I just went in jeans, a University of Maryland sweatshirt, and a winter coat. I went down the slope and had a few spills but was none the worse for wear (other than it seeming a little colder). I did, however, get the sneaking suspicion that people were staring at me. I chalked it up to a paranoid fit and got back on the ski lift to make another run.
On my way up, I looked down and noticed that my jeans had split wide open around the crotch. This explained the staring as well as how chilly it suddenly got.
But wait! There’s more!
This was the 90s. Bill Clinton had declared on national TV that he was a briefs man, which caused sales of boxers to plummet. Moreover, society was becoming less conservative on the little things that didn’t really matter, so, well, the bottom line is that I was wearing bright red briefs. I might as well have had a neon sign on my head, but while everyone thought nothing of staring, no one bothered to mention it to me.
I was on the lift, so there was no turning back, so before I got to the top, I tied my jacket around my waist to cover the tear and skied down the slope. By then, I was getting the hang of it, but I had only one more pair of jeans, and I wasn’t going to risk them, nor was I going to pay for overpriced skiing outfits at the lodge. Mike caught up to me on a break and tried to get me to reconsider, but that was the end of my skiing. Possibly forever.
I’m an indoor kid (inside joke).
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