[NOTE: Here's my entry for this month’s What I Learned From… group writing project.]

Ever been snow skiing? If you have, then you’re probably familiar with the type of ski lift called a poma lift. (If you’ve never been snow skiing… then consider this your Lesson For The Day, and then go ahead and take the rest of the day off.)

The nice lady in this photo is demonstrating the proper way to ride a poma lift. Place the seat (which basically consists of a small round disc on the end of a pole – see the next photo) between your legs and squeeze firmly with your thighs; on the ride up the hill, grip the lift pole with your left hand; hold your ski poles in your right hand.

Once you reach the top, disembarkation is similar. As you approach the release point, pull the poma out from between your legs, maintaining your hold on the lift pole with your left hand (because most places make you exit the lift to the right). At the release point, let go and glide to the right onto the slopes.

Oh, yeah, there’s one more very important thing about using poma lifts. You MUST take your ski pole straps OFF your wrists before grabbing the lift pole. And why is that so important, you ask? Ah, well let me explain…

A while back, while skiing in Wolf Creek Park (in southern Colorado) with my family one year (back when I was much younger, and had more, you know, stamina… and *sigh* hair), I used a poma lift many times.

Now, I’d seen lots of folks riding the poma lift without removing their ski pole straps, and no one ever had a problem. Little kids, adults, teenagers – it just didn’t seem like a big deal. Besides, I was a pretty good skier, and I knew what I was doing, right? Slide up to the loading spot, grab the poma lift in my left hand, slip it between my legs, and off we go! No big deal; I’d done it a thousand times.

Well, by the end of the day I was starting to get a bit tired, and as I took the poma lift that one last time, I inadvertently reached out with my right hand (from which I had of course foolishly failed to remove both ski pole straps) and grabbed the lift pole, just to give my left hand a bit of relief. Still no big deal (he said, blithely); after all, I knew what I was doing.

Well, this time, something unusual happened. As I was preparing to unload, I pulled the lift pole out from between my legs – and one of my doggoned ski pole straps managed to slip around the seat disc! (At first glance, the ski pole strap doesn’t seem big enough to allow this to happen, but take it from me – it does!)

Now I was definitely in deep doodoo a bit of a quandary. I had, like, three seconds to get the stupid thing loose before missing the exit point and getting into trouble. No problem, my highly-capable and well-trained engineer’s brain went into overdrive, switching smoothly into expert mode. The passage of time slowed down. My entire attention focused with laser precision on the task at hand.

I quickly visualized the proper steps and prepared to act:

• Grip the lift pole with right hand, releasing the weight off the ski strap
• Use left hand to slip ski strap around the poma lift’s seat, releasing it
• Grip lift pole with left hand and release with right
• Release left hand grip and slide smoothly off the right.

… and voila! (Which, by the way, is a French word meaning in your dreams, ya big galoot!)

Unfortunately, my actions didn’t, um, quite match the above scenario, as I was still struggling with step two when the exit point passed by. Well, you could stick a fork in me at this point, because I knew by then my goose was definitely cooked. See, at the end of its run, the lift cable rises up a few feet before going around a big pulley and heading back downhill. Also, the motor and machinery are right there underneath that big pulley.

Now, lift operators take an understandably dim view of people blundering into their lift machinery, so they have a simple way of stopping the lift before anyone foolish enough to get snagged on it can get dragged into it and, you know, get what they deserve. The lift motor’s power plug is attached to a safety rope, which is then stretched across the path (something like the finish line in a foot race).

This is so when (not if) a large object (like the body of yours truly) gets pulled across it, the motor’s plug gets pulled out, bringing everything to a grinding halt (and by the way demonstrating to the entire resort population the relative intelligence (or more accurately, the lack thereof) of anyone idiotic stupid foolish enough to do it).

Have you ever seen an undesired event coming your way, and despite everything you could do to avoid it, there came a time when you had to buck up and just take it? A time when there was absolutely, positively nothing you could do; it was just gonna happen, no matter what. And, just to sweeten the deal, you knew it was your own fault! Yep, it was like that.

Well, it was sorta like getting caught with my hand in the cookie jar. When the cable lifted me off the ground, it was obvious that further struggle would be pointless, so I just decided to relax and go with it (not that I had a choice, mind you). As I merrily dangled in the breezes, watching the safety rope come closer and closer, I remember thinking to myself, “This is the stupidest situation I’ve ever gotten myself into.”

Sadly, it’s no longer the stupidest thing I’ve ever done (at least, not anymore), but it was pretty humiliating. There I was, just hanging around for the entire world to see (and to make fun of), and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it!

For the next few minutes (although it seemed like an hour) I watched the lift operator calmly climb into his snowmobile and drive up the hill to me. He slowly got off, stepped over, looked at me for a moment, and said in a very patient voice, “Need I say anything?” I hung my head (since the rest of me was, you know, already hanging) and meekly replied, “No.”

I must admit, as a lesson in humility, it was hard to beat!