“What the hell? Did Eric pee on the floor?”

“Nah, man!”

I accompanied David in the bathroom where we C.S.I’d that shit. We took toilet paper and carefully applied it on the little puddle and discovered that it was a little yellow. We showed our findings to Mark who went out in the living room to share the verdict.

“Eric! What were you thinking? That’s a shot!”

“Nah, man. You got the wrong guy,” Eric retorted while he walked closer to the font door with his beer in his hand.

“Dude! It was you! Take a shot!”

“It wasn’t me!” Eric yelled while he got even closer to the door.

A few of us walked closer to Eric while he inched away. Suddenly, Eric threw his beer at us, pulled the front door open, and ran. It was 15 minutes later that we realized he had no intention of coming back; he abandoned his car.

Eric — wherever you are — keep running, my crazy friend; there’s still a shot waiting for you.

Of course this is tinfoil-hat bullshit, but it only gets better; Richard Thompson of Thomas More Law Center writes:

“The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin.”

Either Mr. Thompson doesn’t know that the package of crime laws does not apply to freedom of speech; or he believes that violence and murder towards homosexuals is a valid and socially acceptable expression of Christian faith.

It’s appalling when someone twists a religion to fit their platform of hate towards people they don’t approve. Thanks, fanatics, for making the rest of us look bad.

(Christian group feels threatened)

“It’d be pretty funny if we abandoned our cars here,” I told Ivan.

Nevertheless, we gave up and we headed back to the cabin. We informed the others that we couldn’t find the cars, so Tim offered to come with us to find them. We again hiked along icy roadsides and headed for the parking lot.

“Holy shit . . . .”

Up front and center of the parking lot are two, six feet piles of snow. Somehow we miraculously abandoned our cars in a parking lot. With shovels in hand, we dug. We worked in shifts to keep things continuous – there was still snowboarding to be had. Raul and I began one of our morbid conversations.

“I’d bury a puppy in snow as my present for my kid. He’d hear it whimper and I’d say, ‘You better start digging before your present dies’” said Raul.

I replied, “And already have a blank tombstone and a plot in a pet cemetery already taken care of, just in case your kid is too damn slow.”

Bystanders walked by and gave us odd looks while we dug. Mark suddenly went insane and began to sing screamo.

“I hate my life! My girlfriend left me! I want to die!”

It didn’t end there. He switched gears and sang country.

“My wife left me; my dog died; I’m drinking whiskey.”

As we dug, a roadside worker walked over to see how we’re doing, and imparted us with a little story.

“I lived here all my life and this is seriously the worst snowstorm we’ve had in over 20 years.”

Of course it was our luck to think that we could drive through some snowfall, but no, it was a full-on blizzard. We were snowed in on the mountain. Trapped. And no one was able to get on the mountain too. We worked diligently and got one of the cars free. We had a brief celebration and went straight to work on the second car. We were men on a mission; we still wanted to snowboard despite all the hard labor we’re going through.

We successfully freed the second car and brought them back to the cabin. Half of us booked it to the slopes and realized that there will be hardly anyone riding – people who wanted to get on the mountain couldn’t. The powder was fresh and the place felt empty. It was a night of riding that we rightfully deserved.

Moments later we were outside the car in the blizzard. We tried to move snow from the wheels of the car but the snow is falling faster than we can dig. Behind us in another car, Mark tried to back up so we could try moving our car back and forth to get it moving again — he became stuck too. We got in front of Mark’s car and pushed while he pressed the gas.

“Monica!”, screamed Mark while the wheels spun in the snow.

It was no use; both cars were stuck. We formed a group of volunteers from both cars and started our trek through the snowstorm. We jogged until we were above knee-deep in snow and slowed our pace to not burn out too fast. The wind slowed us down but we pushed forward until we reached the cabin. The warmth greeted us and tempted us to settle.

In the cabin Raul threw his wet shoes in the dryer while Mark and I made calls. Mark’s car was insured to be towed out of the snowstorm; mine wasn’t, though it was insured if there’s damage due to the snow. Weird. We kept the others in the cars updated on the situation despite the reception on our phones going in and out. No tow truck wanted to come out; the storm was too much.

We devised a plan and set things in motion. Raul grabbed his shoes that were still wet and we went out the door. Tim drove Raul and I as close as possible to the others without losing a third car; we hiked the rest of the way. The blizzard worsened and stung our faces and lungs as we pushed on. The visibility caused us to constantly bump into each other and patches of ice made us constantly slip. We reached the others and grabbed all our bags and hiked our way back to Tim. We made them go in the car to drive back to the cabin; we were going to walk back, but Tim rolled down his window.

“I’ll drop them off and pick you guys up,” he informed us.

He drove off, and instead of waiting, we walked back to the car and grabbed a few more things that were left. As we walked to where Tim was going to meet us, I turned back to look at our abandoned cars — the snow was overtaking them; they were almost completely covered. The snowstorm won.

“Nooooo!” I exclaimed.

The little girl started to laugh at me. I waded through the pool I found myself in and softly cursed myself. On the bright side, I didn’t drown.