My dad, mom, sister, and I are having dinner together. For dessert, Mom brings out a big bowl of Jello.
Sister: *As she’s serving herself* “What flavor is this? Raspberry, cherry…?”
Dad: *Deadpan* “It’s red, Jim.”
Did I mention we’re all “Star Trek” fans?
I’m a ski instructor that works in the Austrian Alps. I’m in charge of a group of ski students from a boarding school in the UK.
One of my students is wearing a suit of motocross armour under his ski clothes — a full neck guard, breastplate, shoulder armour, elbow and knee pads, gauntlets, buttplate, and calf armour. They are all made of the same reinforced plastic as his ski helmet. He wears it as he is “paranoid that he’d get hurt on the slopes.” We all laugh and call him a wimp. As his armour is painted bright gold, everyone calls him “Thanos.”
This happens on the third day of skiing. Thanos manages to get into the ski lift ahead of us, and there’s a group of what looks like university-age girls speaking in obvious American accents. They’re quite loud and when in the queue, they use their poles to disconnect the skis of the person in front of them before shoving them aside before taking their spot. It’s gotten more than one person angry, but the girls ignore them.
They reach Thanos, but when they try to disconnect his skis, he moves his leg out of the way, lightly knocking one of them on the ankle in the process. Those girls go ballistic, shouting about him being rude and a jerka**. They start swearing, but Thanos has reached the front by then and goes up the lift.
I think that’s the end of it, but that is not the case. When Thanos reaches the top, he patiently waits for the rest of us, but the university girls get up there first. They see him and start shouting and swearing at him, calling him rude and demanding an apology.
Naturally, all they get is a flat refusal. They take that poorly, to say the least. They then start hitting him with their ski poles and punching him with their fists. He turtles up and takes the hits, calling out for help while telling his assailants to desist. The girls push him over and then they notice that he is Chinese and add accusations about the recent health crisis — this is during the outbreak in Italy.
At this point, I arrive with a few more students. Seeing us and some ski patrol guys rushing toward them, the girls run off, leaving Thanos behind.
Thanos says cheerfully, getting up, “Well, thank goodness for my armour.”
[Student #1] asks, “Did that even hurt?”
“Nope,” Thanos responds. “Barely felt a thing.”
“Dang, that armour’s tough,” I observe. “I’ll be more worried about the person that rams into you than you.”
“Told you all that my paranoia was justified,” Thanos says smugly.
[Student #2] asks, in an appalled tone, “This was what you were paranoid about?”
I ask him, “Should we go to the police? Press charges?”
Thanos just says, “Nah. It’s our holiday. Let them go. Besides, they’re long gone by now.”
We reluctantly agree with him and continue skiing, but I just wonder what would have happened if Thanos wasn’t wearing his armour or if they had gone after one of the other students. Would they be unharmed and treat the whole thing as a joke? Those girls could have hurt someone badly, and I can only hope that they face justice at some point in the future.
Related:
Thanos Had One (1) Good Idea
I’m a ski instructor working for a ski school. This winter, we were hired as ski instructors for a high school ski trip. I was assigned the most advanced skiers, who consistently insisted on taking the hardest slopes and racing at high speeds.
During our lunch break on the first day, when we took off our jackets, I noticed that, apart from the mandatory helmet, one of the boys was wearing a full suit of armour underneath. It was a complete suit of hard plastic motocross armour, with a breastplate, shoulder armour, elbow and knee braces, gauntlets, shin guards, buttplate, calf armour, and a neck brace. It was also bright golden, as he once wore it as a Thanos cosplay.
We all laughed and mocked him over it, but he took it in good stride, lamenting that he didn’t bring his purple face paint or two Infinity Gauntlets and laughing off us calling him a coward, insisting that it was a worthwhile precaution.
By the last day, after several crashes, everyone was sore and bruised. One of the guys even dislocated his shoulder after he tumbled down a slope. On the other hand, Thanos was completely unscathed, despite tumbling down a slope in a similar manner thrice — he was showing off — being rammed into by another skier, and even getting into a fistfight with a pair of very rude Americans.
That was the first time in my seven years of ski instructing that I ever heard or saw anyone do that, but given the amount of punishment he shrugged off, I’m starting to think he had a point.
My oldest niece is in high school and a bunch of her friends are making fun of her because she has never read the “Harry Potter” books, only seen the movies. I have all of the books in hardback and she asks if she can borrow them and then let her little sister read them next. I say sure, lending them out one at a time.
She gets halfway through the third book when we hear a blood-curdling scream. I go running to her.
Me: “What’s wrong?!”
Oldest Niece: “There’s a huge spider squished in between the pages of this book!”
I started laughing and finally remembered I had been in bed reading when this spider came down in between my nose and the book. I am both scared to death of spiders and allergic to them, so I slammed the book closed on it and then forgot… for a few years.
The best part is, my niece didn’t clean the spider off and when my younger niece got to that same page a week later, there was another blood-curdling scream.
This story was featured in our May 2020 roundup!
I’ve been coming to this seafood restaurant almost every day for lunch for a couple of weeks now and always bring a book with me as I get a very long lunch. This week said book just so happens to be “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.” I’m waiting on my food and they usually call numbers. I’m the only one in the restaurant when I hear:)
Worker: “Ford Prefect, your food is ready!”
When I leave, I ring the bell that they have in this particular chain restaurant and call back:
Me: “So long and thanks for all the fish!”
