Guest Column: Making it in Missoula

You Made It (in Missoula) Winner: Double-Blacks on the First Date

By H-Factor, 3-29-07

I should have known from the start it would end badly, what with he on a snowboard and me on skis.  Nonetheless, I thought a first date at Lost Trail Ski Resort would be a good day of a “getting-to-know-you” on the slopes. 

I’d met McRib (my Lost Trail date) in Helena at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Helena the weekend before, and we’d hit it off and decided to go skiing the next weekend.  He drove over to meet me in Missoula, and we had great conversations on the drive down.  After a couple of non-eventful warm-up runs, I convinced him to join me on Lost Trail’s expansion hill, where I wanted to do some double diamonds.

McRib assured me he was up for it.  As we headed down the double-black Hollywood Bowl, he dropped ahead of me into some trees.  But when I came up behind him a minute later, he was lying dazed in the snow.

“I’m fine,” he insisted.  And continued to insist for the next hour, as we slogged through the trees to get back to the main trail, and down to the lift line.

We took three or four more runs, with McRib getting quieter each ride up the lift.  I started to wonder if I’d said or did something to offend him.  I think it might have been my continued pestering about whether or not he was okay after his un-manly fall in the trees.

Well, turns out he was NOT okay.  Finally, McRib admitted defeat and we headed inside to eat the lunch I’d made for us.  He wouldn’t eat it, though, and finally came clean with me: yes, he had been hurt in the fall.  He lifted up the back of his shirt to show me the bleeding, bruised, and swollen skin just at the edge of his rib cage.  Yikes.

We ended the day right then.  As we headed back up to Missoula, McRib managed to down-play his injury enough to stop for a beer at the Bitterroot Brewing taproom.  When we got back to my house, though, he ran to his car with barely a goodbye and drove off—directly to the Emergency Room.  He called me three hours later, after the ER visit, and announced he had broken (not cracked) his rib.

After that, it was never the same.  A second date was out of the question because of his broken rib (or, as I like to think, his broken ego), and since he could barely talk or laugh, our communication just fizzled.  My friends and I have referred to him as McRib ever since (way before the “Grey’s Anatomy” trend of nicknaming guys “McWhatevery"). 

I think the moral of this month’s winning “You Made It” story might be: avoid the double-black diamonds until the relationship can withstand some awkward falls and bruised egos.  What do you all think about daredevil, recreation-based first dates?

Stay tuned for the next “Making it in Missoula” column on the conundrum of fancy versus funky: first dates in Missoula. Congrats to H-Factor--relish that Bitterroot Flower Shop bouquet and bottle of Ten Spoon wine.
-Big Sis

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