Boards and broads

Anything of beauty can be improved upon with the addition of a woman. Snowboard? Beautiful. Women on snowboards? Sex! Well, for the most part.

If you snowboard in Lebanon then you know the frustrating year-long wait for the small window of opportunity that is The Season, full of waxing, tuning, and severe wallet aches.

This season I broke my financial back on Salomon boots, and a Burton jacket, to go with my $2 fake Metallica t-shirt, $10 gloves and hand-down Oakleys so old they’ve forgotten their original color – but I’ve never liked the aftertaste of splurging. The two women beside had no such issues.

I didn’t want to be near them, or their loud children (who really ought to have been on the kids’ slopes.) But besides the kids, and entourage of nannies, the women had nothing on them that was more than a day old.

The obese one wore silver Quiksilver armor, complete with Quiksilver boots, gloves, and – I’ll bet half a salary – a Quiksilver keychain: ‘Hear me attendants, I have a Prada bag with a silver line and need a high-end snowboarding outfit to match with it. That is all.’ At least, I expect that’s how she shopped.

The hint of black around the bag buckles went well with the Gucci glasses, whose gold trim resonated with her solid-gold anchor pendant – I mean, you think snowboards, you think sailors, right? – bracelet and rings. The second half of my salary and this here tuna sandwich say that they were designer and severely overpriced. She touched her children lovingly, every now and then, the way my grandmother touched her china dolls.

She had a skinned (pink!) Burton T6 – a board designed for speeds she is aerodynamically incapable of – which she stuck into the snow beside her, and lightly caressed during conversation; the less obese friend mimicked the actions. They threw around words like core, base and flex with no regard to innocent bystanders. I’m no expert, but if either of those ladies could have explained to me in two sentences or less what an Alumafly core really was I’d have donated my board to beavers and taken up knitting as a winter hobby.

They moved on to color coordination, clashes between silver and pink, and what little neon yellow butterfly decals on your equipment truly said about you as a human being.

Which designer underwear fit a strong character? Was it waterproof? Did is stretch enough? What bag defined the independence of woman? Is there such a thing as too much silver? (Yes there is, you freaks.)  I was depressed. I packed my old board and sulked towards the nearest junk food stall to heal myself through burger therapy.

Bovine blood was spilled to save my soul that day, but the real cows are still on the slopes.