"Closed for the season."
When I approached the sign posted by the lift maze my eyes fell upon a small sheet of paper posted below the larger more legible letters…
"Closed for the season. We burned your children. We took your money and bought new cafeteria trays. We understand there's 10 times more snow on the hill now than when we opened the ribbon of death, but we're closing anyway. It's time for you to take up heavy drinking and drug use. You see we already have your money and while conditions may be good and you have already paid I think we'll go ahead and close now. This is why you're so addicted to this sport. We take it away from you. Next year you'll be dying for another taste and we'll start turning those lifts again once we've got the cash register running."The letter then went into great detail about the dark ski area psychology and mentioned that in the summer they run the lifts in reverse to carry evil spirits into hell. The letter even spoke about one trapped soul in particular that spent eternity skinning to the top of the mountain only to be forced to ride the lift back down.
I ripped the sheet of paper from the sign and ran through the ghost town that was the base village. I needed answers. I needed the author. I needed to go number two. I couldn't find anyone to answer my queries and the bathroom door was locked. The turtle's head began to emerge from his shell. He began playing a twisted game of "peek-a-boo" with every labored step. Above I saw a dark figure looking through one of the administration building windows. As I glanced up the curtains quickly closed. He'd beaten me. Number two would now have to be my number one focus. The sheet of paper, my only evidence, would have to be sacrificed to save my silky panties.
So if you go to your local ski hill and don't see the piece of paper talking about the "chair lift hell" and why greedy resorts close while conditions are good even though we've paid for our passes…remember the only reason it's not there is because I got there first and had to make a poopy and then used the paper to wipe. It's not because the paper never existed. Believe me that's definitely not the case so stop speculating. (Or hypothesizing, none of that either.)