Photo:
Grant Gunderson

See also Contest 01: Chairlift Encounter

See also Contest 02: Panic

Wax on, Wax off
By STEVE BARON

Picture a house in a suburban Utah neighborhood—a house in decent, if not stellar, shape, in a perfect part of town (a right, a left, and a right, and you're on Little Cottonwood Canyon Road). On a good day you see the top of the Snowbird tram. On a bad day you can smell the snow and know that you are close.

It was Andy, Rob, and I, all good friends with fulltime jobs, all skiers, sharing a house. Two days after moving in we had the basement dialed: a hot-wax machine, a test bench, drills, and jigs all set up. The idea was to trade ski tuning for beer, and friends lined up for the deal. Within a week we worked on 10 pairs of skis, and had enough beer to fill the downstairs fridge.

And it kept piling up, first the beer and then the snow. The tuning business was going well, and the three of us spent more time in the mountains in November and December than I ever thought possible. Until...

It happened. One night around Christmas we went downtown for drinks. Roommate Rob met a girl and fell in love. He packed up and moved out by early January.

Then it happened again. The company Andy worked for decided to pick up and leave Utah. By late January, Andy had transferred to Phoenix.

Rob and Andy paid rent for the rest of the season so I wasn't out any money, and it was nice having a big home to myself. I was in a daze. Tuning skis and making turns distracted me from the realization that my friends had left me, one for a wife and the other for an office, until that fateful day—the day before our lease was up.

After four months of tuning skis, our floor had accrued more wax than a candle factory. I snapped. Desperate for help, I called the guys and asked for help. Strangely, neither could make it.

I called a cleaning crew. Fistfuls of cash in hand, I pleaded: how much will it cost? They looked it over and flatly turned down the job.

I cried. Then I cleaned.

                                                                                        Next: number 2


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