Storms On Ice

May 5th, 2006

I am now a hero in my daughter’s figure skating club. A hero, I tell you…and all it cost me was a little over 20 hours on the phone, four months of severe depression, and as yet undiscovered amounts of psychological damage. I took the my daughter’s figure skating troop to Stars On Ice, inclusive of a pre-show rehearsal pass and meeting and greeting the skaters. Needless to say, the skating parents adored me for it, and that was a good thing…in a small town, sometimes something like that is your only hope for acceptance and your daughter’s only hope for attention amidst the children of the town’s doctors and lawyers. Stars on Ice offered us both of these things, for which I must admit to being grateful. If allowing people to gaze adoringly at John Zimmerman is all that it takes to gain their utter adoration, so be it.

I watched the kids looking at their heroes with adoration and love. They nearly fainted in excitement when Elvis Stojko skated over to us and allowed the kids a photo opportunity with him. It was all very heart-warming, particularly when I noted that our VP was pushing children to the floor and stepping on top of their backs in order to prop her up over the boards to leap into Mr. Stokjo’s arms. Our club has seldom received such inspiringly positive PR. The whole thing brought a tear to my eye…particularly the part where several children were shoved unceremoniously onto the ice in order to afford our VP the opportunity to club Elvis with her shoe and desperately attempt to deposit him in her handbag for safe transport back to her residence.

Later on in the rehearsal, I was called upon to perform hostage negotiations. John Zimmerman stood center ice, surrounded by our club parents, many of whom were wiggling their arms in the air whilst gyrating their hips wildly. It took me several minutes to fully comprehend the nature of the commotion, by which time the club president had folded Mr. Zimmerman neatly into a piece of luggage and attempted unsuccessfully to exit the arena. The show of passionate arm waving was nothing more than a cruel hoax!! By the time the nature of the ladies diabolical plan was unearthed, John Zimmerman’s quiet sobbing could be heard throughout the arena. Having found escape impossible, the club president had instead opted to store him neatly in the overhead compartment. The poor man was hot and sweaty, and had long ago ceased to enjoy his folded state.

It was the hope of the Stars On Ice cast that by donning a leotard and frilly hat, I could force the president to see reason thus releasing Zimmerman from his hot and foldedness.
Sadly, though the frilly hat did begin the process of trust building, no one was willing to relinquish the promise of the unfolding, due to take place shortly after the show. Finally, Kurt Browning stepped in and blinded the president with the glare from his head, slapped her silly and ran backstage like the wind, tugging the suitcase containing John Zimmerman behind him.

Okay, fine…none of that really happened. I would have enjoyed it dearly had it happened, however. The truth of the matter is actually far more mundane. We went to the rehearsal, we went to the show, we went home. Now, how in the hell am I to make an entire blog entry out of THAT, I ask you!! This is why sometimes writers take creative license, folks…for YOUR benefit!! Our job as authors is to keep you riveted to our blog entries /novels/ short stories etc. for the duration. Creative license allows us to hit the nail on the head far more often than not.

At least, that’s my story…and I’m sticking to it.