Sunday Newscape Magazine

The Internet has changed everything. Say, for example, you decide to go skiing. You arrive at the resort fully clothed, as most skiers do, and you hop aboard the chairlift. Unfortunately, it malfunctions, causing you to slide through a gap between the seat and the chair back. As you slide, your pants are pulled down, while your boot simultaneously becomes lodged in the lift, leaving you - bare-bottomed - dangling helplessly upside down.

Before we all became entangled in the Web, only the people who were there that day would have the pleasure of seeing you in such a predicament. But now, thanks to technology, those people would take pictures of you with their cell phones (assuming they could stop laughing long enough), and the pictures would appear online before you’d even had time to warm up your freezing fanny. Then everyone on the planet would have a chance to chortle at your chapped cheeks.

This actually happened not long ago to a man in Colorado. And when I agreed recently to take a ski lesson, I kept thinking about this unfortunate fellow. That’s because I consider myself an embarrassment magnet. If the chairlift butt exposure incident could happen to someone else, it could definitely happen to me. And having my dangling derriere gracing websites worldwide would not be a pretty picture. So I was quite concerned as I walked in my unfamiliar skis -- like a bowlegged cowboy – from the ski shop to the “bunny slope” where I would begin my lesson.

I was part of the “never ever” class, those sane individuals who’ve never before put long, flat devices on their feet and attempted to slide down a mountain on top of massive amounts of snow. I was the oldest one in the class except for the instructor, a hale and hearty man named Sven.

Sven was originally from Sweden, and he was 80 – 80! -- years old. I know this because he kept reminding us as he clambered like a kid up the gentle incline of the bunny slope and then encouraged us to follow him. Although I’m about half Sven’s age, I could only creep along like a crab. On the way, I looked nervously at the chairlift that was taking people to the mountaintop. I didn’t see anybody dangling upside down with bared buttocks. But I hadn’t gotten there yet.

Sven showed us how to stop by pointing the tips of our skis in a V. But Sven – being Swedish – pronounced it “Wee.”

“Just make a big wee,” he kept shouting as I continually chose an alternative method of stopping – falling over. This caused me to childishly giggle. Each time Sven said it, I’d giggle some more, until I was in danger of making a different kind of wee than my instructor intended.

Eventually, after many hours of effort, I was sufficiently adept at making a big wee that I was taken, trembling, to the chairlift. You’ll be pleased to know I made it to the top of the mountain with my pants, and my dignity, safely in place. The Internet is certainly better for it.

© Jackie Papandrew, All Rights Reserved