In March, I was four months pregnant, feeling great, working hard and wanted to do something fun. Dum-Dum bought himself a pair of skis. Now those who know the Seattle area, everyone skis, if you did not it was because you were blind, disabled, or just a nerd. Children teethe on cans of ski wax, most of them say the word mogol before they say mama. Most baby shower gifts consist of diapers, blankets, and ski lift tickets and tiny ski togs. Skiing is not just a hobby it’s a way of life! Unfortunately, my doctor did not think someone four months pregnant with twins should ski. By three months, I could not tie my shoes and I was not about to try to put on ski boots and shush down slopes covered in hard ice.

Dum-Dum bought a pair of skis from someone laid off work because the guy broke both legs trying to ski; but what can you expect from someone who lived his life in Florida. Forewarned, he proceeded ahead like a ship heading for shoals and reefs. We picked a beautiful weekend; the sky was bright blue with wispy clouds and a gale force wind strong enough to beach the average oil tanker. Being young and adventurous, undaunted by little things like weather reports. We started our little trip by packing a lunch the size of the back seat of our VW Beetle convertible. By the way, never drive VW convertible bug on any road with winds gusting to 70 MPH. A small, four-cylinder VW becomes almost a para-sail in winds of that speed and driving to the mountains was to say the least adventurous!

Our first stop was the gas station on the corner for a rest room stop; pregnant women carrying twins do not venture far from rest rooms. We spent a week plotting our course to the free ski area by the route with the most bathrooms along the way. We gassed up the bug and Dum-Dum at the same time. We stopped at a ski rental place because he had the skis but not the poles or the boots. We considered taking out a bank loan since the cost of those items almost equaled our weekly grocery budget.

Soon we tooled away from the city out into the barren countryside broken by an occasional service station. Dum-Dum decided we needed the top down on the bug and because I was young and stupid, I agreed. Soon the wind blew through our hair, our eyes smarted from the cold and our words froze upon leaving our lips. To counteract this, he turned on the heat full blast so our faces were blue but our feet roasted. Every so often, I tried ducking under the dashboard to thaw; Dum-Dum could not do this since he was driving. Soon it started to get warmer then started snowing. Now those of you living in cold country know when it starts snowing in a high wind you get a blizzard and snow at fifty miles an hours becomes icy steel pellets. Dum-Dum found a wide spot and tried to pull up the top; it took him a while because the hinge mechanism froze because of the snow in the back of the car.

When we finally got to the ski area, I was a beautiful shade of blue, and Dum-Dum had icicles hanging from his mustache which was an improvement over the ice hanging on his nose. He pulled off the road on the dirt about one hundred feet from bottom of the hill. He cut off the ignition and we sat there for a moment until we realized we were slowly sinking. We watched the mud coming closer to the floorboards of car. Wondering how deep this mud was, I was concerned because no one knew where we were and images of the Titanic flooded my mind. Soon the car settled as deep as it was going to and Dum-Dum climbed out the window. He told me it was not too bad so he decided he was going to try skiing before trying to get the car out of the mud.

This man never skied in his life; he'd never put on boots, or attempted to walk on skis. For some reason, he never wanted to ski, not at least until I was pregnant. I chalk this up to the male equivalent of cravings. Anyway, he donned his paraphernalia and started up the hill; at least that was his objective. For every two steps, forward he slid ten feet back. He came back to the car and told me he was going to walk up the hill and I mumbled something about how most people skied down hills not up them. He removed the sticks attached to his feet and again started out. He made it maybe five feet up the hill when he disappeared from sight, apparently there was a ditch filled with about seven feet of soft, slushy snow and he found it.

I started giggling oh just a small giggle at first but then when I saw him emerge from this wet, soggy hole, I laughed so hard I made the babies kick me hard. He came back to the car and put the skis back on, I tried to tell him how to go up the hill. I told him about walking side step one foot at a time, what I forgot to tell him was during the side step to make sure he was parallel to the hill, not at an angle. Well he made it almost half way up this small, twenty-foot hill before he started sliding backwards. The sight of this fruitcake coming down the hill was more than I could stand! I was laughing so hard, I steamed up the windows and our bug was rocking with my laughter.

When he reached the bottom of the hill, he got a determined look on his face; I stifled my hysterical laughter and watched as he climbed the hill again. Armed only with determination, a half a twelve pack of Olympia and a bottle of Jack Daniel's, he ignored the laughter of other skiers and made his way up the hill. Reaching the top he gave a look of triumph and pointed his skis downhill. Suddenly I saw his skis cross, his left leg crossed his right and he turned circles twice before falling down and rolling to the bottom.

Gales of laughter erupted all around us, my face was bright red with tears streaming down my cheeks and ribs that ached so much from all that laughing. At that point my knight in tarnished armor took off his skis and threw them as far as he could, almost hitting a three-year-old who was skiing around him like a butterfly around a flower. He walked silently to the car and noticed the steamed condition of the windows. He looked at me with his puppy dog eyes and looked so pathetic, but then memories flooded my soul and I started laughing again. When I finished and started to hiccup, he mentioned we needed to extricate the car from the mud.

He somehow found a long pole, with a funny sign on the end and used it as a lever. I was in the driver's seat and Dum-Dum kept telling me not to give it too much gas or I would bury the wheels worse then they already were. We inched our way closer to the road. Suddenly my foot pushed the gas just a little too hard and I felt the wheels spin, I immediately released my foot and looked at the rear view mirror at a sight that make me hysterical all over again.

Dum-Dum looked at me with his steel blue eyes from a face that had about three inches of mud dripping on his ski parka. I went oh-oh and tried to look pathetic, he just sighed and continued to lever the car out of the mud. Another two feet and we were on solid ground and he climbed back in the car covered in mud. We drove silently down the road. Every so often, a sound escaped my lips but I made sure it did not sound like laughter. For some unknown reason, that was the last time he went skiing. He took up competitive drinking instead.