Dante Was In Snow Once

Jasmine wants me to talk about my one experience in the snow. I touched on this for a bit in an older post. So here goes. I was about 13-14 years old at the time. This picture is around that time period. At my school we had a hiking class. You could take a variety of classes at this bootleg ass school and hiking was one. Swimming was another. Hell, even gymnastics. Ask me if I know how to do a backflip. Ask me! So we would have different teachers on these hikes depending on the quarter. This school did not have semesters. I didn't experience that shit until high school. So this year it was our P.E teacher named Ernie. We called teaches by their first name at that school. So Ernie would tell us “Let's go, ladies!” and we would board the bus. We never knew where we were going. Ever. We would just get on the bus and end up somewhere. Sometimes it was close. One time it was far.

Real far.

So there I am. It's the early 90's. I got on steel toe boots, tight jeans right before those went out of style only to return decades later, and what Josh would call a “Cosby sweater.” It pretty much was. Blue with yellow, red, and orange shapes on it. Shit would be fly now. So we on the bus and it is taking actual hours to get where ever we were going. The driver, Mr. Baldwin, was not the best driver. He was dangerous in the city so imagine suddenly being on roads barely big enough for a car being commandeered by an actual school bus. A big ass Twinkie is heading up these winding ass roads. We would stick our heads out the window and see over the side. The shit was terrifying!

So we finally arrive and there is snow. For reals ass snow! I had never been in snow. Never asked to go to snow. Never wanted to play in snow. Snow was something on TV and movies. Rich, White people skied on it in films and cartoons characters threw it at each other. But here I was in snow for the first time. And it was fucking fuh-reezing! Look. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. If it wasn't or field trips I would not have gone to a beach until I was 18 years old and for sure never would have gone to where snow was. I do not like cold weather. I am a tropical people. Immediately my ass is cold. Colder than I have ever been. We start hiking and by hiking I mean walking and by walking I mean taking a step, lifting my foot out, and taking another slow step. One kid fell down a hill and we joked about leaving him there. He started whining and I thought to myself “He is gonna call a bear and we all gonna die.”

What made me realize 100% that snow was bullshit was when someone hit me with a snowball. This was not light and fluffy. I didn't laugh and throw one back. I went down like I had been hit by an expert sniper. It exploded against my cold stupid face and I collapsed into the snow. I was too shocked and cold to even ask who did it. I still don't know who did it! The shit just happened. I got off my knees which were covered in snow now along with my freezing boots and an ear I could no longer feel. We started heading back to the bus after less than an hour because we had to drive hours back to school. We got on the bus and screamed for the heater to be turned on but Mr. Baldwin said no because of gas and to keep the windows rolled up.

By now the snow is melting into our clothes and I am covered in ice water. This is fun. One asshole decided to roll a window down sending a blast of icy wind into the bus which got everyone shouting at him. I didn't get warm again until I got home, took a hot ass shower, and wrapped a blanket around myself. Jasmine is gonna get a taste of some true snow this weekend and it should be funny. 9 degrees she says. That is not a typo. I did not forget a digit. 9. Degrees. Just a tad bit away from a freezers temperature. Enjoy that. Hahaha!!! Oh. The feeling in my ear eventually came back and it felt hot as hell.