Complete Idiot by John Sweeney

Last weekend I was in Winter Park for the last test you are required to take to be ski patrol. I met outside the patrol room with my fellow ski patrol wanna-be’s and I could tell that not one of us wasn’t shaking somewhere. All of us have gone through extensive, excruciatingly boring training where in the many breaks we would get we would have snowball fights, all of us were given the tools need to get through the five stations that the now extremely scary and powerful patrollers set up at the top of the mountain. We were all outside of the patrol room at like eight o’clock in the morning when the ground was still a little frosty because we were all too scared to go inside and be picked on by all the judges who were already in there laughing at us.
I was pretty freaking scared, despite reassurance from Scotty McNab.
After I actually became convinced that time had frozen just to tease me, the teacher of our class of 26 ski bums came out to tell us where we needed to go and which people we were going to take the test with. I happened to get two of the smartest people in my class plus Sam, who I sat next to during the classes. Both Sam and I failed the midterm in like October, and she failed because I was probably distracting her the whole time.
Having the smart people in your group was both good and bad. On one hand if I were to screw up they could help me out without the judges thinking I was a dumbass. On the other hand, there was a good chance that they would know lots of stuff I didn’t, which was true. Before my group started the first station, we were discussing the three possibilities of that station: heart attack, insulin shock or anaphylactic shock. I forget exactly what they were talking about, probably because I was so nervous, but I know that had no idea what they were saying. When all of a sudden time jumped to ludicrous-speed and it was my turn to lead the assessment set up at this station, the judge decided that he didn’t want to go through another one, even though it would only be the second for him. He said something on the lines of “Well Don (our teacher) said that you guys know this stuff, so I’m going to let the rest of you skip this and just say you aced this station.” What’s better is that he didn’t let any other group go the rest of the day.
I probably owe him a lot of money or something.
As the rest of the stations went by and the judges kept on pointing out little details that I missed I became more and more convinced that I failed everything, and that at the end of the day when they were telling us that we passed or failed they would start the meeting with “John Sweeney, we need you outside…” What really happened is they called out about half of us, starting the list with the three of us who were let off the hook for that one station, who needed to retake on station. Sam, the smart-ass and I knew what the deal was, but somehow karma let us off the hook one again.
I probably owe that judge a lot more than I first thought.
Me and a few of my class mates decided that we should take a celebration run. We hit a cruiser for some speed to blow some steam, and I decided to hit the moguls on the side of the run. I was skiing down through the moguls that Winter Park and Mary Jane are famous for, when all of a sudden my line disappears and moguls start appearing where they shouldn’t. I decided that that didn’t matter now, I mean, I was officially Ski Patrol therefore one of the best skiers on the mountain. I decided that my knees could take it and that once I would get around these stupid misplaced moguls that I would emerge skiing like Kelly Slater did in the Warren Miller movie this fall.
Well, apparently I was so wrong.
I hit another mogul and got shot up spinning, which was bad; I can’t stand stuff like that even if I mean to do it. I remember seeing one of my friends I was with behind me as I was rocketed in directions I didn’t want to go and then seeing one of my skis bouncing of some moguls behind me – well I was facing it but I was moving away from it, therefore it was behind me. I hit the ground and slid through some moguls about fifteen yards. I didn’t hurt myself, I was fine, but when my friends could pull themselves together and quit laughing to bring me my ski I realized that the front of my binding was twisted ninety degrees the wrong way.
I’m sure some mother down the hill had to cover her child’s ears because I cursed so loudly at my ski. The ski probably felt embarrassed too. After spending a few minutes trying with all my might to rotate the binding to where it should be and failing to do so I decided to take my other ski off and ski down the hill without skis. This was fun. Scary, but fun, and I managed to learn how to turn too. As I got to the bottom of the run, I ran into none other that a Patroller. This Patroller, Tyler I believe his name was, took one look at my ski and promptly made my binding look normal. He skied off leaving me feeling like such a fool.
I guess that’s what I was afraid of in the first place. I didn’t want the real patrollers to think I’m a fool, and I thought that the only place I could do it was in the test, but when I was finished with it and feeling invincible I drop the ball and let loose to the Patrollers that I was a complete idiot.