“What are doing?! Are you looking at your phone? Put that thing away. Oh, you were just, you were just holding up the line that’s what you were doing.” The line attendant shook his head. “People!!!!! you see that sign? That one that says no mobile phone use past this point? It’s there for a reason.” The young man sheepishly put his phone away and skied forward and got in his proper place in line. People applauded. Standing, skis tip to tail, merging and bobbing and weaving, alternating where the parallel lanes came together, we were soaking in the warm sun…but we would all rather be soaking in it on our way down the hill.
This lift-line was a bottleneck for this entire part of the mountain. Waiting in long lines to load a lift is not what ski resorts want for their patrons. People post photos and drag the resort on social media. And so, the resort had assigned this gentleman to keep the line moving. He was the type of guy that could get in another man’s face and get away with it. I thought he must be a physical education teacher; I could just see him assigning laps or whomping some miscreant on the back of the head.
“You, are you in this group? No? Then why are you there? Move up for God’s sake.” Everyone in my general area was laughing and nodding our heads. This was a good thing. This ski resort, one of the biggest and busiest in the world, had been getting bad reviews and they had had enough. So they sent in this terminator type to keep us all on our toes and moving along. No one wanted to incur his wrath and so most people in line were paying attention. It was working. We all loaded six abreast onto the lift chairs and kept moving right along.
During the lift ride we chatted about his antics and how we appreciated that the resort had assigned the right guy for the job. The teenaged South Americans that were here on work visas would ask you politely to move along, but they were too sweet. I wonder if our hero rubbed off on any of them.
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