Spring Break

Yesterday we headed off to a five-night ski vacation in Squaw, Tahoe. After just one night stay I loaded the kids back into the car and drove home. Why, you may ask?

Mofo Mama cuts short Spring Break

My kids have three different Spring Breaks so I planned to take the two youngest boys and Kevin and the other two would join us for the weekend. The future was not bright: reports of rain, no snow and rocks galore, but the place we'd booked would only allowed cancellation with two weeks notice.

After a three hour drive and majorly demented by dehydration, I pulled up to Tahoe's Safeway grocery store and allowed the two boys to pile up our cart with sugar cereal  - aka "crack for kids" -   thereby propelling them onto a high-low roller coaster.

The loft we'd booked turned out to have the unremitting heat of a Brazilian jungle without the calming effects of a frosty Caipirinha and we tossed and turned all night long.

This morning: two hours of nagging the boys into their ski clothes, then Jackson couldn't find his season ski pass and Cy couldn't find his gloves. Queued up for Jackson's new pass and walked into a ski store to buy new gloves for Cy.

"Hi! I'm looking for kids' gloves that are warm but don't cost too much." I said to the Dude Doing Nothing.
Dude Dudemeister points to the back, reluctant to move from his Dude-doing-nothing spot.  I walked to the back and motioned him over to help.
"What's warm but is the least expensive?" I asked.
Dudemeister said: "I'm not going to make any guarantees about any of the gloves. These probably won't keep you that warm." He handed me a pair that cost $48.
Silly me, I didn't want to pay $48 so I asked him further questions.
At each enquiry he shrugged and said the same thing: "I'm not making any guarantees about the kids' gloves."
I was just about to self combust when I saw the newspaper headlines:

Spring Break Syndrome

   Police were called to a ski shop in Tahoe today after a female customer created a disturbance, screaming hysterically and throwing an array of kids' gloves at one of the shop assistants, Dude Dudemeister.

   Mr Dudemeister said: "Totally not my fault, man. We were, like, talking about gloves and then she just went, like, freakin' postal on me!"

   Mr Ian Bobblehead, head of Psychiatry at WestEastern University said: "We're calling it Spring Break Ski Glove Syndrome. To be honest, I'm amazed they haven't called in more cases."

  Witnesses on the scene say police had to carry the woman out of the store and she continued to scream: "I'll give you fucking Ski Glove Guarantees - you Motherfuckerrrrr!!"
   

 I was ten seconds from being that woman.