A Chilly Little Poem

I'm no poet.

I don't know why I bother with a disclaimer like that. You're going to find out for yourself soon enough.

I'm Skiing Today

This might be the last day I'm alive,
but I sure hope that is not the case.
With luck I am sure I'll survive,
It won't be skill that saves me with grace.

'Cause I'll fall on my ass and snowplow my face,
Even though I have kick-ass, brand-new ski boots,
I ain't no red-faced, beer-swilling ski-bum called "Ace,"
I'm just another brittle-boned Jew with snow on his toots.

If you see me come down the slope at a high rate of speed,
Get out of my way, or your day will get truly fucked up,
For ski school and training and remediation I need,
I'm the equivalent of lobotomized, newborn, dumb pup.

I'm skiing today.
And you're praying today.
'Cause your boy Apron's in one hell of a lurch.
Like I said yesterday-- if you know what's good, get your ass back in that church.

Motel You Something

Yes, we're in the Poconos.

No, we're not staying in one of those places with a champagne glass-shaped hot-tub/semen receptacle.

We came here to ski: even if it kills me. And today, after making a wrong turn, I thought it might. At the very least, I took a spill that I was sure had broken both my thumbs. And yetm here I am, blogging on a smartphone- thumbing my merry way into your hearts- God love you and your easily thumbed-through hearts...

So, obviously, my thumbs are okay.

While I'm not usually in the habit of making petty excuses for my varying and colorful ineptitudes, maybe I would have skiied better had I not been utterly sleep-deprived and operating my skis under more of a haze than the average inebriated, blonde-haired, snow-chapped Telemark d-bag, scuttling haphazardly in a fog of Natty Ice and a puffy, goose-down onesie.

The reason for the dearth of sleep experienced by Mr. & Mrs. Apron? Why, the peeps in the room next door.

Apparently, the cheaper motels in the Poconos rent rooms to hoards of donkeys. I was not aware of this little-known business practice, or I might have gone more upscale, you know, like one of those places with the rotating champagne glass jacuzzi and the vibrating toilet. From 9:30pm until at least 2:30am, the mothercunts next door brayed incessantly, at one point drunkenly playing either charades or Pictionary, when I finally acquiesced to my wife's begging me to call the front desk. If anything, this made the donkeys angrier. And louder.

I pictured their room-- hay and feces and donkey hair everywhere. Poor Conchita won'tt like refreshing those towels.

In the morning, I did something I hardly ever do: complain. I know, I do it on the blog all the time, but that's very different. I don't walk up to randomly french-kissing lesbian couples and pull down my pants in real life either. The long and short of it is that the woman at the front desk was very apologetic and moved us to a different room without hesitation.

We'll see if the skiing improves.

A Skiier's Prayer

Editor's Note\Apology:

My wife and I are on a vacation-lite in the Poconos for a few days. For webnotainment and blogging endeavors, I have only my smartphone on which to lean, and type. And the fucking keys are the size of a cricket's nipples. As such, you will observe that My Masonic Apron's blog entries for the next few days, while not as annoyingly brief as tweetledeetdeets, will be regrettably truncated.

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I'm going skiing tomorrow.

I know-- you're like, "B.F.D., loser. I pour lighter fluid all over myself, have some neckless guy named Bra shoot me with a Vietnam War surplus flamethrower and then jump out of a helicopter while strapped to nothing but a bag of broken glass and Oral Robert's corpse."

And I hear you. Really. I do.

But my family's idea of excitement was going to the King of Prussia mall or taking the Buick through the car wash. I never went skiing until a few years back when I let Mrs. apron pop my ski bunny cherry.

And I fell down a lot.

I still fall down, but not as much as I used to. I even go on some moderate-level slopes and I don't spontaneously start crying on the way down anymore. Now I sing Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs at the top of my lungs as I somewhat erratically cut through the obstacles in my way-- namely red-faced, drunken assoles in North Face jackets and giggling girls with jangly fleece jester hats.

So, wherever you are today, send up a quick prayer for me. And, if you're taking to the slopes somewhere in the Pennsylvania mountains and you happen to inexplicably hear "I am the Monarch of the Sea" sung out lustily behind you-- get the fuck out of the way.