JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding.... In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being "suspended for approximately seven minutes." The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that "the man was caught on the chair."
Yes, I know what you're thinking ("That can't POSSIBLY be a man hanging upside down with his shortcomings flapping in the breeze...can it??")...but you'll just have to trust me on this one. No, you just can't make this stuff up, knowhutimean??
Yessirree, the fear of being caught in this sort of compromising position is what keeps me up at night...not that I don't have already have enough to lose sleep over. I mean, there the poor guy was, flapping in the sub-freezing Colorado breeze (SHRINKAGE!! WE GOT SHRINKAGE!!!), wondering if he would EVER be able to live down the embarrassment of having his pasty white butt and his upside-down family jewels plastered all over da Interweb. Then again, the poor guy can probably count on being inundated with marriage proposals from Russia in 4...3...2....
And what about the poor guy's son, who was forced to be an innocent bystander with his father dangling in the breeze in his altogether? Can you imagine the blackmail potential the kid will wield over his father for the rest of his life?? (OK, son; this is my final offer...I'll pay your way through Stanford, buy you a Mercedes E-class, AND buy you a house after college. Just NEVER, EVER mentioned what happened today....)
Don't bother asking me why I never learned to ski.... ;-)
