Thursday's Homework Assignment

Welcome to another Thursday Writer's Workshop! Kat is our teacher, and class is never too full! Head on over to Mama's Losin' It and add your name to Mr. Linky's list! Pronto!

The prompt I chose today was:

Recall a time when you did something to get noticed.

Just one?

Let me set the stage for you:

The year was 1982.

The characters were the Shewchuk family, and me.

The set was a ski hill.  Somewhere.  C'mon, I was 10, cut me some slack!

Two things happened that weekend.  But I'll save the other one for another day.

First off, I am not a great skier.  I can hold my own going down a hill. Snow plow, of course. Knees bent, arms out, feet so far apart I'm practically doing the splits, tongue sticking out in concentration. Let me tell you, I am quite a site.

Keep that description in mind while you read on...

Jodi and I went to the top of the mountain. On the way up the few different chair lifts, we decided to pose as pro Australian skiers. Complete with those really cool accents.

We glide gracefully off the chair lift. I don't think anyone noticed the chair actually hit me on the ass on my way down that little slope. Nobody saw me wobble, just a bit.

There are two options here.

We take the easy route and go down the well worn path around the moguls.

Or we go straight down, flipping and flopping like little fish in between mogul mounds, feet together in perfect parallel. 

If you were a professional Australian skier, what would you do?  Well, naturally. Duh!

We stood at the top for just a moment to chat, and to make sure everyone noticed us.

And then we were off.  

Okay, well Jodi was. She flipped and flopped over and around those moguls like the pro she was pretending to be.

I only watched her for the first couple of graceful movements. The next time I saw her was when I untangled myself from the pretzel I had become. She was standing at the bottom with her weight on one leg, sideways, leaning on her pole. 

Watching me.

Waiting for me.

I crawled my way over to where my ski had landed. I cleaned the snow out of the bindings. I stood to put my boot in. 

And then I fell again.  

And again.

I. Could. Not. Get. The. Darned. Thing. On!!

So, since I'm not only a funny-looking skier, I'm also a fool, I sent my ski flying down the hill to Jodi. 

In my mind, it glides directly to her, where she is able to effortlessly stab it in the binding with her ski pole to bring it to a stop. 

In my mind, it was a beautiful moment.

It didn't quite work that way. 

It took off to the right. Waaaayyyy right. (Or wrong, depending how you look at it.)

I held my head high, stood up with one ski in hand (why I didn't just carry BOTH down the hill, I will never know) and my poles in the other, and prepared to walk down the hill.

Enter stage left:  A man that has NEVER in his life been a kid, nor done anything wrong. Ever. He proceeded to give this amazing professional skier, with no more delightful accent, heck. What I did was incredibly unsafe, not to mention stupid.

Hmmm.  Well, sir. I believe you just did mention it, now didn't you?

Lucky for me, and his woulda' been whooped ass, I was a terribly shy little kid. I mumbled sorry and continued down the hill.

If my aim was to be noticed, then I did it in spades.

As for Jodi? I don't think a single person noticed her.

Rhonda: 1 

Jodi: zip