Power is nothing without control

As Mr Pirelli, said, “Power is nothing without control”

This takes me to one morning when I, with an uncomfortable pain on my side, am facing a Doctor. He has a radiograph in his hand.

-“Côte cassee”, he says. 

I don’t understand, côte remembers me the world “entrecôte”. Is that guy asking if I’m  hungry?

I look around and see the familiar face of my wife.

-You have a broken rib, dear

The final “dear” sounds like idiot, “you have broken a rib, idiot”. Oh my God!

- Should I wear a plaster cast around my chest … here? - I ask the doctor, worried.

-We can do that, but then –said the doctor- you couldn’t breathe. Do you really want the cast?

Well, not really…

Could I ski more? –I ask- I’ve  paid for the whole week.

- You better not, you can puncture a lung. But you can drive home if you wish.

We are in a French ski resort, 1.400 km. from home.

 My wife looked away and moved her head as meaning don’t even think about it!

Ski is a dangerous sport.  You know, the human body has 206 different bones but the only that nobody has broken at skiing, so far, are  those three we have in the inner ear.

The business of skiing is about going fast in a frozen surface using a pair of boards attached to your feet with two poles attached to your hands. The faster, the better. You feel powerful, man!

But as Mr. Pirelli would say “power is nothing without control”. So you’ll have to learn to brake before you learn to speed up. And the ski instructors teach you this dignified position plow, plow plow!.

I’ve been skiing for 40 years…How have I wasted my time!

In a typical day of ski, first hour in the morning you wake up early and start to dress with all that clumsy equipment: anorak, trousers, boots, mask, poles, goggles, bonnet, creams, you go down to the lifts and there is a light blizzard. At the starting lift there is a huge queue, people are packed in line, so close  they look like penguins in the South Pole, wearing their skis and poles. People step into your skis, scratching them with their own -pardon me, escusez moi!- trying to elbow their way ahead. Half an hour wait is common.

Then you get into the lift. Prepare yourself for a trip on the chair lift. You have to face wind chill. You shiver. Conversation with your chair neighbor is out of question. Jaw freezing is common in. You cannot speak properly. It’s something like the dentist’s anesthesia

-Whele do you came fran?

-I came fran Valenza, Sssspain.

.

But, when you really realize how clumsy is the ski clothing is at the time of going to the toilet.

You enter there, and approach the pissing bowl walking like the Frankenstein monster. You open your zipper and you find that, due to the cold weather, certain parts of the human body  tend to shrink to such a small size you’ve never imagined they could. You soon realize it’s impossible to get out such a small thing with such a big gloves. So you take them off, but there is no place to leave them. Finally, you put them down your armpit. While pissing, oh power is nothing without control! you realize than one glove is moving. You have to choose between:

-       catch the glove halfway down, releasing the instrument you have in your hands --in which case the instrument will probably retract back in, and you’ll piss yourself inside the ski pants--, 

-       or let it fall into the floor and get soaked in all kind of dirty liquids

You choose, obviously, to let it fall.

 (pick it up and try to bite the glove while fastening your zipper)

So, if you want to ski, prepare yourself, prepare your wallet, and make sure you have an accident insurance that covers any broken bone, except the three in you inner ear.

And rembember: “power is nothing without control”