The J-Bar and Me

I have never ridden a j-bar before, that is, until yesterday. If you were born after the 1970's, you may not know what that is unless your parents used to ride them, like mine did. They are chairlifts, but I use the term loosely. Emily, Anna, and I went to a small mountain last night that still had one of these contraptions, and we had to go on it just to say we did. I must say I should have had the upper hand because I was the only skier, and riding the j-bar as a boarder is...interesting. Emily went first, and nearly ran into the "lift" attendant. Anna went next and did the same. But now it was my turn. I was going to do this like a pro, with grace, and ease. I pushed myself over to the right place and waited nonchalantly for the strange pole thing to come and whisk me up the hill. I grabbed the pole and promptly sat on the horizontal bar. I fell. In a vision I saw my mother in the distance, instructing her children how to ride the j-bar: "Remember, you can't sit! You will fall. Just let it take you." Ah, yes, now I remember! I struggled up, with the help of the unfortunate assistant boy, and regained my footing just in time to be pulled up the hill.

We decided that we would rather not see the lift people on the j-bar hill ever again, so got in line for the real chairlift. This was common ground, home sweet home, our level of professionality. I was feeling pretty good until we were about 2 people away from getting on the lift. For no reason at all, I fell. Standing in line. It was that pathetic.

Next we tried the 3 chair. It sounded perfect. 3 people, 3 spots on the chair. There was a mass of people waiting in line, so we picked a likely spot and slowly inched forward. It wasn't until 10 minutes later when we got closer that we realized the ropes were really close together. There was no way for 3 people over the age of 5 to get through together. It was then that we noticed the sign: Singles Only. Things began making sense. There were 3 lines, one for triples, one for doubles, and one for singles. All three of us were in the singles line but were not about to go to the back and start all over again. So instead of riding up together, we all went separately with those in the doubles line. Riding up with high school sweethearts who met a week ago and hearing all of their high school gossip isn't my idea of fun. But that's what I did. When we all got to the top of the hill we decided we didn't like that chair lift, or the mountain for that matter. It made us look bad.

My one consolation is that even if we saw the people from that mountain again, they wouldn't be able to recognize us. How I love goggles.