By Mordechai Schmutter

If you have boys, at some point they’re going to break some bones. I mean girls break their bones, too, but not really more than adults, I don’t think. Boys are more likely, when you ask, “How did that happen?” to tell you an activity that was not super-necessary in the first place. The kind of activity that when you consider doing it yourself, you say, “Nah, I don’t really have time for a broken arm today.”

For example, just yesterday, my son broke his arm skiing. He wanted to go skiing with some guys in his yeshiva, and he actually asked us to pay for it and we said no, the reason being that we ourselves have never been skiing nor have any of our other kids, so we’re not going to pay for him to do something that all our other kids are going to say, “How come you’re paying for him to do it?” and then they’ll want to do it too. We’re going to decide when we do something like this—we’re not going to let it be determined by one kid’s yeshiva. So the agreement was that he would somehow cover the cost of skiing and we would pay for any medical bills that would result.

(I would actually love to go skiing at some point, because that way I can get an article about skiing, and then I can get an article about breaking my arm, and then I can get an article about having to write articles with a broken arm. And then after that I would just have a broken arm and have to keep writing articles that are not about that, so that’ll be annoying. In general, once I write an article or two about a situation, I would very much like for that situation to be over. Like with COVID. Or weight loss. But the point is I would get three articles for the cost of one, plus the cost of X-rays. And the skiing equipment I’m apparently going to use once.)

“So how did it happen?” I wanted to know. On one level, that’s a dumb question. It’s going to happen. But it makes me feel better to hear a story. Just something so I can say, “Wait, stop. That part. Don’t do that part again.”

He said, “I fell.”

That’s very informative. Yeah, obviously you fell. You don’t break your arm skiing without falling. You’re just skiing along and your arm breaks from the wind resistance.

I suppose you could hit a tree. But I think they clear the trees out of the path that you’re supposed to ski on. So in that case, maybe the story is at least that you veered off the path and onto another mountain and then hit a tree. So statistically, it’s more likely that you fell. Or you were on the Bunny Slope and you tripped over a bunny.

Unless that’s what the more advanced slopes are—they’re the ones where they don’t bother to remove the trees. I always thought they just started higher up the mountain.

He did eventually tell me more of a story: “I was trying to slow down so I wouldn’t get airtime. Because the first time I went down, I got a second of airtime, and it was terrifying. Am I going to land wrong? Am I going to twist my ankle? They tell you how to stop in the middle of the mountain, but not how to stop while you’re in the air.”

Don’t look at me. I don’t even know how you get airtime on a ski slope. Is there a part where you’re skiing uphill? Is that what the bunny slopes are? Just uphill? That’s sort of like when you take your two-year-old sledding, and you put the sled on top of a little mound of snow that maybe goes up to your knees, and he sits up there all excited, and then, WHUMPF, the sled just sinks down through the mound. And you laugh and go, “WHEEE!” And he looks at you and thinks, “That’s it?! Wow, that was overrated.”

Actually, I always pictured a bunny slope as being basically flat, and you mostly have to walk and push yourself with the poles. Like you can technically open up a bunny slope in the inner city. Whereas a black diamond slope you have to have way out somewhere where there are a decent number of unexpected cliffs. Where you have to jump over the highway.

Again, I’ve never seen a ski slope in real life, except on summer vacations, so it’s all hearsay. I feel like if I ever go skiing and get airtime, I would break several bones. And not all of them would even be mine.

But my son tells me that the rating system is more about the hazards on the slope, so now I’m thinking it actually sounds like it’s not hard to open a black diamond slope. It doesn’t sound like you need to do any maintenance ever. Don’t cut down the trees, don’t smooth down the snow, leave the cliffs and the fallen skiiers, maybe put up a few medical shacks in the middle of the slope … Like people go, “SPLAT!” against the outside of the shack, and the doctors just have to run outside and bring them in. In fact, maybe they don’t even have to run outside—maybe on that side of the shack there should just be a big plate-glass window that they keep replacing.

My son wasn’t actually on the bunny slope, he told me later. He was on the green slope, which he says is the next level up, if he could be believed. He’d done the bunny slope three times, and he figured that after three times of not falling, he was ready to switch to a slope that actually went downhill. That should be enough, right?

What I want to know is how all the ski facilities got together and decided to use the exact same system for rating the slopes.

“So listen, it’s going to be black, blue, green, and bunnies. All in favor?”

“What just happened? Do you not know any other colors?”

I don’t know why they shifted the naming. It should be Bunny, Snow Fox, Pack of Wolves, Momma Bear Whom You Just Woke up From Hibernation.

Also, shouldn’t the colors be green, yellow, red?

Actually, why is green the easiest? If the green slope were actually green, it would be really hard to ski on it, no? It would be horrible. The black slope should be called green. It should be—from easiest to hardest—the white slope, the grey slope, the brown slope, and then the green slope.

But no, they ran out of colors.

“Um, what if a slope is harder than black?”

“Oh, then we’ll call it double black or triple black.”

“What? Why are we switching to numbers?”

“No, no, there are also shapes. The black is diamond, the blue is square, and the green is circles.”

“What does that even mean? Are they skiing in a circle? How does that even work?”

“No, the circle is vertical. It represents the airtime.”

“And the square represents tripping hazards?”

“Yeah! And the diamond represents spikes!”

Anyway, this might be the inner parent in me talking, but skiing is already paying money to fall down a mountain. Your goal is to fall correctly so you don’t break your arm. That is the entire challenge of the game. But it’s just a matter of time until you fall wrong. I don’t know anybody who’s ever been skiing who has never ever fallen wrong. You know how when you go outside your house and there’s snow, you have to make sure not to slip? Skiing is like you’re going to slip on purpose—we’re going to give you big slippery things to put under your feet—and also we’re going to take you to an incline so that if you do slip, it will be for miles. It’s like you know how when you wax a floor, everyone takes their shoes off and runs and sees how far they can slide? Imagine your dining room was at a 45-degree angle and also a mile long. And ended on a highway.

Basically, you want to fall down the mountain, but you want to do so in a controlled fall, as opposed to an uncontrolled fall. That’s a very narrow line to ask for from the Ribbono shel Olam. Does anyone say Tefillas HaDerech at the top of the mountain? So what’s protecting you? Is it just “shomer pesayim Hashem,” until “B’derech she’adam rotzeh leileich molichin oso” kicks in?

But OK, maybe I’m being overly dramatic here. You don’t necessarily break your arm. For example, most of my son’s yeshiva went skiing, and only two kids broke their arms.

Basically, if you go on a ski trip with a group, statistically someone will break something. That’s why you want your kid to go skiing with friends. If you take your family, no matter who it happens to, you’ll end up in the emergency room.

And I don’t want to be the type of parent who tells him that I told him so, despite this being one of the unadvertised perks of parenting teenagers. If he breaks his arm, you told him so, and it’s a teachable moment; and if he doesn’t break his arm, no harm, no foul. So it’s a win-win! Let your kid go skiing!

Just don’t forget to say extra Tehillim that day. And with more kavanah than everyone else’s parents.

Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of seven books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com. Read more of Mordechai Schmutter’s articles at 5TJT.com.

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