Speaking of 80′s Power Ballads…
Every time I hear Poison’s “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn,” I’m transported back to fifteen, when my best friend and I took a family ski trip to Winter Park, Colorado. Living in Louisiana, there wasn’t much of a choice in ski suits; I mean, snow was some mythical weather phenomenon that they told us about around Christmas time. So my mother and my best friend’s mother both made the trek down to J.C. Penney to buy our snowsuits.
Imagine our teenage angst when we found out they had bought the exact same ones.
Bright pink, with grey trim, I’m not sure that they didn’t plan it that way on purpose. After all, two teenage girls in bright pink who have never encountered snow are pretty easy to spot on the side of a mountain. Just look for one sprawled out while the other laughs hysterically. The ski lift operators came to know us quickly; I’m sure it had something to do with me coming in too fast and taking out two rows of people-mover tape before flipping over a fence (as my BFF laughed hysterically).
I wasn’t a big fan of the ski lift. For one, it was cold, which everyone knows I can’t stand. Two, it was high, and the unnerving feeling of two heavy sticks of wood pulling at your feet as they dangled gave me a constant fear of falling off. Of course, my BFF thought that was funny, too. And third, it just took FOREVER to get to the top of the freaking mountain, so my BFF and I would amuse ourselves by spitting on skiers below or making fun of the people who fell down (and I wonder now why karma is so cruel to me).
So, to pass the time, we would sing. At the time, I really thought I could sing. It was only years later and countless musical auditions that were quickly cut short by “no thanks!” did I realize I couldn’t. (I’m just grateful American Idol wasn’t around back then so there’s no recordings of that audibal atrocity. Cats in woodchippers sing better than me.) But the song that sticks out was the quintessential Brett Michaels power ballad. And we sang so loud that when we were done, the fellow riders cheered for us. But before they could request an encore, my BFF pointed beneath us to the snowmobile towing a wounded skier.
“Hey, that looked just like your mom!”
“Crap, that *is* my Mom!”