Finding Our Skis

Somehow last weekend we, or I guess I should say I, managed to lose my kid's skis. We don't unload the truck right away, so it wasn't apparent that her skis were missing until the next day. We spent a few moments staring at each other wondering, "What the heck did you do with her skis?"

Being the neurotic nut case that I am, I immediately put my pants on and told the kids to get dressed, thinking that we didn't have a moment to lose and we had to rush over to the ski hill and search for those skis. Eventually reason set in and cooler heads prevailed, and I concluded that nothing was going to change during the course of the day, so we headed over later in the day.

When we got to the ski hill, I combed the parking lot and the base of the hill, trying to retrace my steps and remember what I had done with those skis. Skis are not like sunglasses, they're rather big and not something that you can easily misplace, though I'd managed to somehow do exactly that.

The problem was that the hill was deserted, and there was nobody there to help. I finally walked across the grounds to the lodge, thinking there was a lost and found. Surprisingly, there were a bunch of guys hanging out, having lunch. I recognized them as the grounds crew, and they were extremely helpful. We checked out the lost and found, then the supply closet, but no skis. They told me I might have to wait until Friday when the hill opened and I could ask the ski patrol, but that was five days away, and the wait would have killed me.

Finally one of the guys mentioned that the ski patrol might have found them and just left them in their warming hut, which was locked but he had a key. He offered to unlock the room and let me have a look, and I jumped at the chance.

Sure enough, there they were, sitting in the corner, our little skis. I was so stoked, not so much for the financial aspect of it all, but more so for the symbolic nature of our kid's skis. That would have bummed me out, and probably woudn't have made her very happy, either.

The one thing that stuck in my mind was that we didn't give up. There were ample opportunities to do just that, because early on, it wasn't looking too good. We live in Vermont, and people are decent and don't, for the most part, do things like steal skis they find lying around. Sure, we lost a sled when we lived in the Red Barn, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it wasn't taken by a local but rather someone from out of town, eating at Simon Pearce (how ironic is that?). Anyway, I figured that if we did in fact leave the skis at the hill, nobody was going to take them home, and that's how it ended.

Just a nice moment I wanted to share. Good vibes to be had.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.