Photo:
Grant Gunderson

See also Contest 01: Chairlift Encounter

See also Contest 02: Panic

What's That Vegetable?
By SIMON MOSES

Breaking a wooden dowel is a petty reason to get fired. But in the last month I'd also broken Dan's drill, lost his socket set, and ran his truck into a tree.

I saw his anger boiling over one last time, so I beat him to it. "I quit!" I yelled, and fled for the door, officially retiring from slave labor for the rest of the year. I spent my last few hundred bucks on a season pass and pitched a borrowed tent at an abandoned campsite out of town. With winter on its way, it was just me and the rats and an old Pontiac, which worked roughly every other day.

The first month was hard. Lonely nights huddled in a pile of blankets that I'd begged from Goodwill. I knew from my table-clearing days at the lodge that I could pilfer half-eaten plates of nachos. But the early season was too quiet for my increasing hunger, and so I did the next most natural thing: I began an aggressive Dumpster Diving Program.

Though far from pretty, it worked. I played the daily game of "What's That Vegetable?" with myself while ferreting around in frozen metal bins. Shelter, food, a car—the only thing missing from my swanky accommodations was company, though that was about to change.

I got to know a bunch of people around town that first month. While you'd think I'd find a way to mooch my way under a real roof, quite the opposite happened. Soon I was joined by others at the campground who quit their jobs in exchange for my garbage-munching, every-day-on-the-slopes lifestyle.

Soon the place was hopping—nice lunches of lodge leftovers and evening drinks around the fire. One guy even managed to get his sponsor, a bourbon company, to send us samples of its product.

A year later I graduated from the Dumpster Diving Academy, trading the tent for a nice apartment and my scavenging roomies for an actual girlfriend. I taught snowboarding on the mountain almost every day. Did I sell out? Maybe. All I know is I still steal sideways glances at half-eaten nacho plates. Some habits die hard.

                                                                                        Next: number 3


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