Straight out of National Lampoon...

I have had the MOABD! (Mother of all bad days)! The kids are still on vacation so M convinced me to take them out to the Black Forest so that they could learn to ski. A friend of ours is a ski instructor and has been saying he'd be glad to teach them, just let him know when.

For the record, I am NOT a winter person. Put me in the middle of the ski slope when it's sunny and I'm OK, but just thinking about all the other BS around it makes me want to crawl under a rock and stop breathing until it's all over.

But of course I know that the kids will love it, that it's important to take advantage of where we live, etc, etc. So we left this morning and drove the 1 1/2+ hours to the ski slopes. Lengthy drama because there's no place to park. Then there are no skis. All three rental places were completely empty. I know because I stood in line at each and every one of them.

We ended up renting sleds for the kids, but that just wasn't the big bang they'd been expecting. So the friend suggests that we walk up to a hut a few kilometers away. It's all uphill, but hey, I'm up for a bit of exercise and at least then we might get a chance to warm up and eat.

We get there after much hemming and hawing from the kids and guess what? No real food to be had. Just cake. Party for the kids, but a complete disaster for me-- I have a blood sugar issue and can't metabolize sugar. I eschewed the cake for a half a sandwich I'd had in my pocket, which brought me back from the brink of death. In hindsight I think I might have preferred to expire right there on the floor of the schnitzel shack.

We started back towards the ski area and suddenly B was gone. At first I was calm, figured he was just around the next bend, but still no B. Have you ever tried to canvas people skiing past if they've seen a kid in a blue snowsuit? It's sheer madness-- there are thousands of kids bobbing around in blue snowsuits! I'm surprised nobody laughed; it was that absurd.

I finally found B, and when I'd finished having a near epileptic fit I took the kids to return their sleds. We walked into the shop and a girl pushed ahead of us and swiped B with her ski poles-- BINGO, right in the eye! He actually took a ski pole to the eye! There was some blood inside his lower eyelid but now that I've had some experience with these things I could tell he's probably going to be OK.

We finally make it back to the car. Our friend is driving a bit erratically, and, as luck would have it, B has to pee. We look for the next rest stop, but our chauffeur isn't paying attention. He takes the ramp too fast and has to hit the brakes in order to keep control of the car. Up until that point he'd been driving with a thermos of hot coffee between his legs. (you see where this is going, don't you?) So he slams on the brakes and the thermos crashes to the floor. He's shouting: "SHIT! HOT COFFEE" and is swerving around the rest stop with one hand and trying to fish the thermos off of the ground with the other. Luckily I didn't know at the time that it had actually rolled under the brake so that he couldn't stop the car.

So. disaster averted. B pees and we get back into the car. Finally make it home after 8 1/2 hours of sheer hell. Finally take off of our damp clothes. And I empty my pockets. only to find that in the midst of all the chaos I've managed to lose EUR 180 that I'd had stashed in my jacket pocket...