Assembly

Yesterday was snowboarding day!

R and I gave C and M a promise of a snowboarding lesson this winter for Christmas, and we finally made it out yesterday! And because of it today I feel like a doll that had her head, arms and legs snapped on in assembly and these points are still sore fromthe procedure. But that's good, bothing is bruised on my body, I don't think. But actually we ended up getting our money back.

Here's the story. We were all really excited, C and M brought snacks and so on (hooray spearmint leaves!). It's a pretty good deal to have a private lesson if you have two or more people, and it includes rental and the lift for the lesson, so that was all good. We got all geared up abd borrowed boots and a board and went ot he private lesson place.

We got hookied up with a nice young man who immediately said 'oh, four people, that's a lot". Now, my sister is/was a teacher. Of children. Of all descriptions in groups of forty and was immdiately like, uh, four of us? A problem? Let's call him NG for no good.

NG took us over to the bottom of a hill and we put boards on for the first time and he started us doing toe drags or something, but as we soon found out, he was a terrible, terrible instructor. He offered no actual instruction, for example, here is the type of conversations we would have:

Instructor (NG): Okay, so try turning.
C: How do we turn?
NG: Just turn.
M: What do we do while we're turning?
NG: Just turn! Turn your head, too.
Me: [Tries it, doesn't turn, falls]
NG: That's it! Good job.
R: but she didn't turn.
NG: [clearly not paying attention] Yeah, exactly, now you try it!

After 10-15 minutes of ever being on a snowboard, he decides to take us up the lift. Two of us had never been on a lift, all of us had never been with boards. None of us were prepared for the steep drop hill thing-y after where the lift drops you off, and we all crashed into one another. C fell and hurt her tailbone, which isn't fair to her at all, and when NG said, literally while she was still on the ground, 'okay, let's go' I kind of wanted to shove him down the hill.

Agreeable enough guy, but, Worst. Instructor. EVER. We made it down the hill and we asked to go to the bunny hill to practice some skills, like, I don't know, FALLING, or SLOWING DOWN and maybe not doing it with a million skiers swooshing past us on a big hill! WTF! Double-U , Tee, Eff, my friends.

Whatever, we do some bunny hill stuff and decide to try to the big hill again. We go up the lift but this time we carry our boards and dismount just fine. Also, we chose the smaller lift over to the side and it was slower and easier to use.

[I just want to interject that we were running the lesson, here'a a typical conversation]

Us: can we practice some skills?
NG: I don't know, like what?
Us: we don't know, we've never done this before, like falling or stopping?
NG: Just drag your toe, it's easy.
NG: Who wants to go up the hill?
Us: what?

Anyway, he brings us up the hill and I kid you not says " well I have to go teach another lesson, you guys'll be okay. And leaves us at the top of the hill! He left! snowboarded away! This is really special. We actually have a better time just ourselves. I figured out what he meant by toe drag, C instructed us on how the plane down, M figured out how to spin around and stop well, and R showed us how to fall.

But anyway we obviously complained and got our money back. Check this backstory! As soon as we said the guy's name the supervisor was all, ohhhhh, yeah. Him. It turns out our instructor had an avalanche experience out west and was traumatised enough to require medication, and he wasn't recovered because he was fired last year for being rude to customers! The supervisor said he's been keeping an eye on him, said it would be dealt with, and gave us our money back. He was really unimpressd to hear we'd been abandoned at the top of the hill, and that C got hurt, because that's a pretty severe liability. I was pretty unimpressed that they hired him back, didn't check him out and that somehow he was certified to teach.

If C hadn't been hurt, I would have been totally happy with this, since we can now use the money for another treat. Otherwise it would've been no harm done, but it must have been very frustrating for her to have to hold back to protect her injured back.

Anyway, so it was, overall a good experience. It was a beautiful day, we all had fun, we learned from each other and were happy together, and can now look forward to a Christmas redux with more fun (likely gastonomical) times.

Phew! What a day. But a good one, it's always nice to learn new things and grow, you know?

Have a good day.
Also, I'm sure I've already told you all, but I got mostly into Dal. I'll post a message in a few weeks and either confirm or embarrased-ly retract. Later gators.

xoxo