If God was a DJ...

I skied once, I think, while in utero, if that even counts. I mean, I know a fetus has no rights and isn't a person, but since I inhaled my mother's cigarette smoke and inherited her stupid fat calves while in her belly, I think I have a right to lay claim to the Wild Whistler adventures that she had in the months before my birth.

Little embryonic Jamie was enjoying the slopes but delightfully insulated from the cold thanks to mommy's belly fat and attractive layers of 1970's ski-bunny clothing (in powder blue). My eyelids were still sealed shut, but I was just beginning to move around (although, at about an ounce, my movements probably didn't do much to disturb my mother's equilibrium....god, what I'd give to get back to my embryonic weight).

I can only guess if I enjoyed my first skiing experience, because I sure as hell haven't been back since.

I mean, first, there's my fear of heights (or, as I prefer to say, my fear of falling from great heights, or of falling even from rather small heights, as far as that matters). I went on a ski lift post-natally, once, at Mont Cascades, because in the summer it turns into a water park. But that once time was enough to convince me that Jamie + oversized innertube + ski lift = bad was probably much akin to Jamie + poles + skis that are taller than me = just as bad, maybe worse. I also have a strong dislike of speed. I get carsick when Jason backs out of the driveway. I also have an aversion to: winter clothing, wind-blown hair, log cabins, frostbite, broken legs, wind-chapped lips....well, you get the picture.

But if all of that wasn't enough to dissuade me, I have an even better reason not to ski: God.

True story.

One night, God came to me, and he said "Jamie, sweetie, you know I think you're a great gal. You really are. You make awesome spinach dip and you have an ass that won't quit. But I have one tiny request to make. Now, you may be too young to remember this, but some time ago, oh, say, a few thousand years now I guess. Jeez. It feels like it was just last millenium. Where has the time gone? But anyway, you may have heard of this little incident I had wherein I may have flooded the earth, annihilating all creatures except Noah and the animals. Ring a bell? I know I come off kind of harsh in that story, but really it was just bad spin. I had a really bad PR guy back then. And before you even say it, yes, I do regret bringing the rats aboard. Not my finest moment. But anyway, my point is that after the waters receded, I pulled that neat rainbow trick and I told Noah that it was my promise to him, blah, blah, blah, and that I would never again "curse the ground", etc, etc. And that's how you fit in. Because, let's be honest here, babe: a girl like you should not go hurtling down a crowded mountain with sharp potential weapons in her hands, and this thing about not killing off all the people, well, I'd really like to honour that. I've made a lot of resolutions in my time, but my follow-through isn't always that great. Obviously the platypus is an animal I never quite got around to finishing, and I just got lazy and covered lots of the earth with either ice or water neither were really in the blueprints but with my deadline looming, well.... and I can't even drop a pants size ever since Julia Child got me hooked on cream sauces. Get what I'm saying? This is it for me. For the sake of humanity's safety, just stay off the slopes."

Now, normally I'm a pretty accommodating girl. If he had bought me two appletinis, I would have agreed to almost anything, and probably would have let him get to second base. But frankly, he just showed up without a hostess gift or anything. So I said "Well, God, what's in it for me?"

And he looked at me for a second, and I could tell that this was a guy used to getting his way. But let's face it: Moses was a stuttering introvert, Noah was the town drunk. These guys were just pushovers waiting to be given direction. I, on the other hand, am woman. Hear me roar.

So God said to me "What more do you want? I pretty much emptied my back of tricks when you were born: beauty, brains, wit, modesty....what is there that you don't have?"

I had to think for a moment before I answered "the perfect man."

So he sent me Mark, who was handsome and funny, and a pretty good lay.

But then I dumped him and married Jason, because what does God know about relationships? That boy is an old maid if ever I saw one.



And don't worry, I'll probably never ski anyway.