3/04/2013

Downhill

Story Sent in by Virgil:

For my first date with Lana, I had a brilliant plan: sledding. There wasn't much more to it than that. There was a place in town that made its own cider and hot chocolate, and I figured that we could go there to warm up after spending a while on the slope. When I told her the idea, she loved it.

I arrived at the top of the hill with my bowl-shaped sled. Un-steerable in the extreme, it truly represented the pinnacle of sled engineering. Lana arrived with... no sled.

"Where's your sled?" I asked her.

She said, "I thought you were bringing one for me."

"It's okay," I told her, trying to be nice, "We can share mine."

She said, "No. I've seen this trick, before. I climb onto your lap on there, and the next thing I know, hello Mr. Happy. We'll take turns, if you please."

It made me sad to think:

1. The childhood innocence of sledding was forever marred within her.
2. It was assumed that my plan was to get her on my lap and introduce her to "Mr. Happy," whoever he was.

I reassured her that my intents were noble, but she would have no part of it. So instead of it being a fun bonding activity, sledding became a stupid I'll-just-stand-here-while-you-go-downhill-alone activity.

I decided to cut sledding short, as a result, and I asked her if she still wanted to go to Wesley's, the place with the killer hot cocoa. She did, and I thought that perhaps, finally, we'd have a chance to get to know each other a bit better.

At Wesley's, we sat down at a table, and the date actually did get better. She was pretty funny, and I thought that perhaps she had just been handed a bad hand of cards, and that it would just take her some time to trust me. I understood, and it was okay.

We had driven to Wesley's separately, and when it came time to go, we went outside, and I turned to her to say goodbye.

She asked, "Where's my sled?"

I reminded her, "You didn't bring a sled. Remember? We used mine the whole time."

She replied, "Yeah, that's my sled. Do you have it in your car?"

I said, "Uh, it's actually my sled. You didn't bring one."

She asked me, "Are you sure?" a few times.

Each time, I was more sure than the last. She said, "Because I'm pretty sure that I'm being robbed, here."

I assured, reassured, and re-reassured her that nothing of the sort was happening. She gave me a not-so-convincing, "Okay..." and we parted ways.

Afterward, I wrote her a non-committal "I had a good time with you" email, and she never wrote back. Probably all for the best. If sledding is that corrupted for you, then you haven't much hope in this life.

9 comments:

  1. Ouch... that last paragraph makes my head hurt.

    OP, here's a pro tip for you - her issues probably have little to do with "corrupted sledding."

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  2. You should've brought her a sled. Really. You think a grownup is likely to own one?

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  3. She did respond to the email, with just one word:

    "Rosebud....."

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  4. That was actually an alternate title consideration for this.

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  5. I proposed to my wife on a sledding trip. The hill we went to can only be reached by a 30min snowmobile ride. A gem only the locals know about. My dad was breaking trail through the woods ahead of me, and my wife to be and I were following on another snowmobile. At one point he crossed a log and shook it free from the snow so it popped up. I idled up to it to make sure the skis would go over the top, and they did. But, the snowmobile got stuck on the top and tipped some, dumping my wife off the back. An omen of things to come perhaps.

    We made it to the hill, I had brought a tube and a sled. I should mention the hill is about 300 yards long with a 30 deg slope. A good size hill, with a rock ledge 2/3s the way down for a nice jump. As a kid we went there all the time, and we'd see who could jump the furthest. 15 years and 100 lbs later, it didnt cross my mind that i'd get a lot more momentum now. I soared off the jump and popped the tube on the first run down. Oh well, we still have the sled. After seeing what happened on the trial tube run, my wife wasnt keen on trying the sled first. I took a good running start and dove onto the sled on my stomach, like I did as a kid. Friction had no hold on me as I sped towards the jump. I flew off the jump and was a good 20 ft in the air. At this point I realized, this hard plastic sled is going to pop like the tube, and splinter and tear me up in the debris pile. I threw the sled out from under me, and tried to land on my feet. I've never had the wind knocked out of me so bad in my life. Couldn't breathe for a minute, thought I was going to die there with broken ribs puncturing lungs. My wife slid down the hill on her butt to see if I was alive. And she said yes, so thats nice. Now I know why my dad always dragged his feet in feet in the snow to slow down.

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  6. ^ LOL, Don... that was more entertaining than the OP's story for sure. Glad she said yes!

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  7. So Virgil says he doesn't know who Mr. Happy is and then assumes that Lana's refusal to sit in a stranger's lap is the result of some past trauma as opposed to common sense.

    Virgil's story is highly suspect.

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  8. Unfortunately most guys in the dating game in this day and age feel it is appropriate to either A: Flash their junk to a woman on a first date and expect her to hop on, B: Bring up sex within the first 30 minutes of a date and again, expect her to just hop on, or C: call women a fat whore who they didn't want to go out with anyway when we reject their immediate demand for sex. It's a sad sign of the times. Out of all the internet dates I went on when I was still single, about 75% of them went like the above. I got really lucky with my husband. He also said when he was internet dating, most women treated him like he was going to try to assault them within the first 10 minutes of the date. I feel bad for people still looking for someone because it's rough out there.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unfortunately most guys in the dating game in this day and age feel it is appropriate to either A: Flash their junk to a woman on a first date and expect her to hop on, B: Bring up sex within the first 30 minutes of a date and again, expect her to just hop on, or C: call women a fat whore who they didn't want to go out with anyway when we reject their immediate demand for sex. It's a sad sign of the times. Out of all the internet dates I went on when I was still single, about 75% of them went like the above. I got really lucky with my husband. He also said when he was internet dating, most women treated him like he was going to try to assault them within the first 10 minutes of the date. I feel bad for people still looking for someone because it's rough out there.

    ReplyDelete

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