So we went sledding this weekend. It’s been a few years since I’ve done it, but I mean, how hard can it be? Oh right, first let’s talk about the kids. Blah, blah, blah, children are the future, their laughter gives angels wings, yada, yada, yada. Here’s my brother John and his boys Jack and Matthew:
Here’s Ryan who just turned one. We sent him down the triple black diamond slope. I think we enjoyed it more than he did.
Okay, but the real event was when I, Craig, King of All Snow Sports, took my turn down the hill.
There was a hushed silence as I started my descent. So many questions were asked that would soon be answered. Why wasn’t Uncle Craig in the Olympics? What does a sonic boom sound like? Will he wet his pants?
Now here you will see me reach the bottom of the hill. It’s a little hard to see, but my back is arched like that because I’m currently soaring over an enormous ramp.
Here, I’ve drawn you a schematic:
Something tells me you’re still not quite getting it. So I had a highly sophisticated digital artist render an approximation of the events that took place:
And here’s the aftermath. It’s amazing I could maintain such composure after nearly losing consciousness from briefly leaving the stratosphere.
Perhaps I should give up my professional status as a Supreme Snow Sporter so I can compete in the 2012 Olympics? Meh, seems unfair to everyone else.
Growing up, we always had hills that we would ride inner tubes down. First, it was a nearby cornfield. Then, in a hill next to our house, with my dad at the bottom to keep us from crossing the road and hitting the barb wire fence. Finally, next to the next house, but with a nice flat part at the end where we built a ramp to stop the tubes (no danger of tetanus!). After my brother and I grew too big for tubing, my parents added on to the house and put a deck in the old inner tube path.
Obligatory dirty comment: Is it just me, or does it kind of look like Craig is about to be cited for inappropriate relations with a winter transportation device?
Inappropriate relations with a winter transportation device, I really love that pic of you Craig.
Yeah, Ryan is cute in the 2nd picture, but you’re cuter in the 3rd.
“What does a sonic boom sound like? Will he wet his pants?” and that is why love you : ).
When I was a kid I used to hike into the woods across the street from my parents house (which were deforested a few years ago to build a whole street of overpriced million dollar mini-McMansions
) to go down this awesome sledding hill. My little sister used to tag along and annoy me.
There is a nice sledding hill in the park across from my current house. This winter I realized that I must be old, because in the 2.5 years I have lived there it never occurred to me to go sledding down that hill myself. Perhaps once my nephew is older I can go with him.
Craig: I am glad you survived your daring dance with death.
Michelle M.: I agree, Craig looks cute on a sled.
Ryan: When I first saw that photo I wondered why Craig was humping the snow. I shouldn’t think that would be very satisfying.
Reading this again, the words enormous ramp suddenly became a lot more funny.
my son especially liked the last picture, he said, “craig crashed”
Adorable and adorkable photos. And you sure “arching your back” isn’t just a reflexive action when you’re on your stomach and there’s something enormous nearby?
HUGS…
Little Ryan doesn’t look too thrilled. He’s a cutie though. You have nice skeleton form. At least you didn’t crash into the tree and smash your head open like a melon. Fun times with the family.
I’m amazed you folks still have snow on the ground. Just how far north to you live? I didn’t even need my winter coat today.
I suspect Craig’s lawyer is advising him to remain silent.
We have a hell of a sledding hill. It’s called our driveway. We don’t sled on it, though, because it would end with someone launching off the stone wall at the bottom and ending up in the neighbors’ kitchen.
Ryan: No, I was just busy thanking my highly sophisticated digital artist for remembering to photoshop over the hole I had cut into the sled that would have been revealed in the final pic. Fshew!
Michelle: As a good uncle, I must state that it’s impossible for me to look cuter than my nieces and nephews. But only because their parents might be reading. Otherwise: wink wink, nudge nudge.
David: We were in Pennsylvania when these pics were taken. On the drive there, there was hardly any snow, but they live higher up in the mountains and there was still plenty of snow on the ground.
Craig: I love how you are worried about your parents reading claims of you being cuter than your cousins but don’t appear to worry about them reading about your use of sleds as sex toys.
OK, Ryan is ADORABLE! I mean, Cupcake is pretty cute too, but little Ryan is just too cute on that sled. Clearly, he got some of the looks from his father’s side of the family, because his Uncle Craig is looking pretty cute on that sled too!
I’m still amazed they were able to get photos given the speed at which you were traveling down that hill!
john: These comments have had a weird effect on my ego.
Thanks for the lines in pic 7. Otherwise I would have had bad thoughts about what you were trying to do to the Grand Canyon.
I’ve never seen it, but that’s kinda how I imagine Vern Troyer’s “private video”.
Totally unrelated, but I love this:
Gay version of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”
Ryan: I Loved that video! If only real life happened like that.
To be true to the sport, shouldn’t you be wearing a spandex body sock thingy?
Ahh, Puntabulous. First off, why am I totally not surprised that it was Ryan who started off things true to form with a filthy innuendo, or, as he so obligingly put it, an “obligatory dirty comment”.
Secondly, David, I was as surprised as you by the snow — it’s been very warm up here in Boston the past several days.
I have my own fun sledding story. In my senior year of college we had one of those April Fools blizzards where it had been spring for a while and there were buds and flowers and everything and then we got SLAMMED by a massive snowstorm. A bunch of us took dining hall trays up to Science Hill and went sledding.
On one of the runs, one of my best friends and I tried to go down together, with him in front and me behind, on two different trays. Something went horribly wrong and we went rolling over each other and then I ended up basically sledding down the rest of the hill with HIM as my sled (no dirty jokes please — he’s straight) face down.
The comical nature of our accident was so funny to me that I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe or see straight and in my laughing stupor trying to get off him I basically rammed his head back into the snow as I clambered over him.
Eventually he got himself up, and what was even MORE hilarious was that his glasses had acted as scoops on the way down, so he had two walls of white snow in front of his eyes and couldn’t see.
But that wasn’t all of it. Oh, no. It got better. Just as we’re all laughing at him with his snowscoop glasses, one of the walls of snow just “fell out” from the frames. It turned out that one of his lenses had popped out *somewhere* on the slope. There was no hope for retrieving it. He now just had one wall of snow in front of one eye, and the other eye had no lense. We knew we shouldn’t, but that just made us all laugh even harder. He was … somewhat less amused than the rest of us.
Thank you for this highly amusing and chuckle-worthy post, Craig. (I’ll refrain from making any comments about your use of the Grand Canyon and what this says about a possible penchant for hyperbole *cough* puntabuschlong *cough*) And for reminding me of my own happy sledding story from years past.
And thanks, Ryan not only for your reliably puntabuperverted commentary, but for the cute video.
Oh, and John — aren’t you straight and married and everything? What’s with turning Ryan’s head like that?
(And yes, he is cute.)
So Justin, you rode a guy, which ended with his face covered in white stuff, and he’s straight?
Ryan. LOL. Yes, um, yes, and very definitely yes (and not remotely my type even if he hadn’t been).