The rubber anniversary

For our one-year anniversary of knowing each other, which I know is not the same as a one-year anniversary of dating or being boyfriend and girlfriend (you know we’re not going there), TBID and I wanted to do something new. There wasn’t much time to plan anything too extraordinary, so we needed something local.

At dinner that Friday night, we still weren’t sure what to do. A trip to Rhode Island was suggested. I’ve never been there, and I’m not sure what one does there. But someone does something, and I have a camera and a good companion! It was an idea.

Skydiving was also being considered. Because nothing says “I love you,” like getting strapped to a stranger and then jumping tandem out of an airplane. And potentially crapping your pants. We can’t forget that part of the milestone.

Late Saturday morning, TBID had an epiphany. “Why don’t we go snow tubing?” Months ago, I read about snow tubing in The New York Times. It seemed like the perfect winter sport solution for people who don’t want to wear special pants or use their insurance card. TBID hasn’t ever been skiing or snowboarding, because his parents aren’t into it. I haven’t either, because I grew up on the face of the sun.

We synchronized our watches and headed to Connecticut in the late afternoon. On the drive, we talked of romantic things, like TV show theme songs from our youth (seriously, you have no idea how much we lament the cancellation of TGIF on ABC). I told him about the time I went to Connecticut to ski when the snow had dangerously turned to ice. “I settled for visiting an alpaca farm, instead.”

Then we started talking about alpacas.

“We’d need a really large apartment for one,” I said. “We’d have to curb the spitting, too.”

“They don’t spit,” TBID, suddenly an expert, replied. “Llamas spit; alpacas are chill. I saw an infomercial.”

After miles of snow and mountains and the sporadic novelty of furry roadkill, we pulled up to the snow tubing place. We could see tubes and tubers on a conveyor belt angled skyward. Once on top, they rode together down the mountain with ease and speed. It was like a textbook geometry problem.

TBID and I went into a building stocked with snow boots, overpriced bags of chips, and mildewing carpet. We signed a release stating that we would not sue if we acquired minor or fatal injuries. I happily consented - the last thing I plan on doing when I’m dead is pursuing legal action. There was a tiny sign that suggested we rent helmets for an additional $10, but having an intact central nervous system is highly overrated, methinks.

We hung tags from our zippers and walked across the street to the tubing lanes. Hurriedly, I grabbed a tube and headed to the conveyor belt. It was surprisingly difficult to simultaneously maintain balance and hang onto my tube at the same time. Antics reminiscent of I Love Lucy ensued.

When we got to the top, it hit me. I was about to ride a rubber donut down the icy side of a mountain. A small mountain, maybe a hill. One that was high up. Did I mention it was surrounded by ice, and I’ve never broken a bone, and I was hoping to maintain my unsullied skeleton?

TBID and I watched kids weighing all of 60 pounds belly-flop onto their tubes and go flying down. “See? That’s how you do it,” TBID pointed. I decided he should go first. That way when I went down, he’d be waiting for me. It would be good to have a witness, in case I had to renege on that paperwork I’d completed.

There were multiple tubing lanes to choose from. Two were for beginners, as in Wounds 101: Beginning Bodily Harm. Others were more advanced Tort Tracks. Just looking at the Black Diamond trail made me shiver. TBID chose one for beginners, dropped to his stomach, and pushed off. We’d been told to drag our feet, which he was trying to do. My boy whipped out of sight at the speed of sound.

I saw the top of his head a few minutes later. It was still attached to his body. Shit. Now I had to tube down. It took me a good five minutes to get into position.

You know how sometimes you really dread doing something, but then when you actually do it, it’s not that bad? This was not one of those times. I gritted my teeth and pushed off, my knuckles white with fear and the toes of my boots mimicking icepicks as best they could. The slope whooshed by quickly as my tube bobbed and slid and nearly climbed the precipitous edges between lanes.

“I’m going to fall off this mountain and sustain massive injuries,” I screamed. Actually the scream was more like this: “Arghzkhdfghkjahhh!” In the mad scramble to stay alive in the center of the lane, I hit my knee hard enough to see stars.

When I got to the bottom, TBID was waiting for me. I got up, relieved and throbbing. “How was it?” he asked.

Let’s just say it was a little bit easier than that time we met and I let him into my heart. But just barely.

The second time was easier. I still screamed and hit my knee again, but I started doing push-ups on the tube at strategic times to keep my face from being bashed in. TBID and I even tried double tubing.

When the sun went down, an attendant told us that the snow tubing lanes would be closed and we’d have to walk across the street to tube where the skiers and snowboarders were. I was grateful for a break. Perhaps I’d grow a pair in the 15 minutes or so it took to get the single snow tubing lane ready for fresh blood.

The moon twinkled on the snow covered hills as a worker bellowed that it was time. TBID, a group of middle-aged women in full snow regalia, some reckless elementary school boys, and I sat on our tubes and got hooked to the pulley system that dragged us up. It was easier than the conveyor belt, until my inner tube failed to automatically unhook and the tube shot out from under me and hit a pole. A sheet of frozen snow broke my fall, and I broke it.

At the top of the one breakneck tubing lane - one higher and steeper than anything across the street - everyone huddled together. On one side of the lane was a woodsy area, on the other was a wide slope of complete ice. We were warned not to slip or try to slide down.

“The last person required an ambulance,” a staff member explained with a shrug.

We were about to draw pine needles to see who would be the first to kill him or herself, but the little boys were all to happy to lead. So much for learning long division or hitting puberty.

One of the adults went down next. She came out bleeding, having hit her jaw on a glacier. Their group soon left for safer endeavors, like driving drunk through the woods.

I can’t remember if TBID or I went first, but there’s something to be said for sliding down a mountain and not being able to see how close you are to being wheelchair bound for life. Now that I knew to do push-ups and kick off of the sides, I zipped down with nary a scream. My hat went over my eyes a few times, and I still managed to stay away from the trees.

TBID was another story. He was easily the biggest person in our tubing party. When he touched belly to tube, you could guarantee that he’d be rolling over the edge and through the woods, to grandmother’s house he’d go. TBID even went over the other edge and ended up sliding down the icy death stretch. I was helping a kid who flew off his tube and ended up facedown at the time, so I missed it.

“Did you see me lose control and end up in the middle?!” TBID asked, beaming. “I threw myself off the tube so I wouldn’t plow right into the building!” The little boys loved it.

We went up and down all Jack and Jill-like with the boys, striking up conversation about basic physics and who tubed the fastest. Conversation was replete with sound effects and lots of “Whoa!”

I was happy to be knee-scraped and rolling around in the snow with TBID. As we walked to the car at the end of the night, he told me he was glad I tubed with all the boys, that I was no typical girl.

I was glad he’s no typical boy.

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