You say "Toboggan," I say "JUMP!"

When I was a kid I used to go to my grandmother's house and would summarily be bored to tears because, well, IT'S MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE and you can only play with her chihuahuas so much before you tire of them.

That is not a euphemism.



One winter when I was about 8 or so I was faced with the prospect of going back to the tourist attraction known as "Grandma's House of Boredom." Out of desperation I asked my friend, Ed, to come with me and for some reason he actually did.

How I tricked him into coming with me I don't remember but I can only imagine it involved the promises of candy and chihuahuas and Legos and strippers and shit.

Imagine his disappointment when there was NO CANDY OR LEGOS and the only stripper that showed up was my gay cousin and I'm pretty sure he only did private shows.



Regardless, it was winter and since this is New England there was approximately 14 feet of snow so Ed and I started to go outside to play (read: pelt each other with iceballs until we bled from the eyes) when my mother piped in:

Mom: "Rod. Why don't you go down to your cousin's house and get her toboggan and go sledding?"

DONE.



My cousin (not the gay one) lived four or five houses down so Ed and I wandered down, flung open the garage door and..

..there..

..it..

was.

Hung on the wall was a brand new toboggan.

For those of you who live in warmer climates and are unfamiliar with what a toboggan is let me tell you that a toboggan is like a normal snow sled that you hop on while at the top of a snowy slope and glide down gently.



The difference here is that unlike a regular sled, a toboggan doesn't know the terms "glide" or "gently" or "stop" and getting on one can only be described like a scene from the bridge in Star Trek where they kick it into hyperdrive and stars and shit fly by and the next thing you know you're in the Gamma Quadrant and how the fuck did I get here so fast?

THAT. Is a toboggan.



So Ed and I grabbed the toboggan and headed back to my grandma's house which was perched atop Mt. Everest and at the bottom of the slope was a really really long field and then, like, a mile away was woods and maybe some sherpas or shit.

No problem.



Ed hopped on the front and me being a giant fat shit of a kid hopped on the back and with a SWOOSH we were rushing down the slope.

"HAHAHAHAHA!"

We were giddy! We were flying!



"HAHAHA"

Like..like flying like REALLY FUCKING FAST kind of flying.

"Ha. ha?"

For some reason it turns out this toboggan was probably built by the KY Jelly company because having the bottom completely coated in lube is the only explanation I have for this thing ACCELERATING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL WTF HOW ARE WE GOING FASTER?!



Ed: "ROD!!"

Ed was trying to get my attention but I'm pretty sure my eyelids at this point had peeled all the way back and my mouth was open and filling with mounds of air at such a rapid pace that I have no idea how this produced no drag to slow us down at all.



Faster. We were flat now...speeding along...and not slowing down. I almost didn't even acknowledge the noise when we broke the sound barrier.

Ed: "ROD! JUMP! JUMP JUMP JUMPJUMPJUMP!"

I couldn't jump because I was fat and frozen in fear because those woods I was talking about earlier? Yeah. Those woods were coming at us faster than John Goodman at a buffet table when they put down more chicken.



Ed: "JUMP!!"

It was no use. Even if I HAD managed to jump I'm pretty sure that the force of the snow impacted with my gelatinous body going slightly less than the speed of light would have caused some type of catastrophe.

Years from now scientists are going to discover that the real reason the dinosaurs are extinct is because they went tobogganing down at my grandma's house and a Stegosaurus tried to make a break for it.



Every time I blinked the woods were 100 feet closer. It was like I had a strobe light on but instead of a strobe light it was my own mortality.

Then it happened.

You know the scene in "Speed" where the bus is about to hit the gap in the bridge and then it miraculously JUMPS and there was no jump so HOW THE FUCK DID THE BUS JUMP?!

People. I'm here to tell you that, yes...

The bus can jump.

Because we did.



As we hit the edge of the woods at some blistering speed, the toboggan LAUNCHED.

We flew through the air...the toboggan and Ed and I flying through the woods like we had Ewoks with us but no lasers but maybe there were I have no idea because my eyes were squished so tight that I'm pretty sure I turned inside out.


Then..

BAM.

Done.

We hit a tree.

How I am alive today I have no idea but I remember the impact of the toboggan hitting the tree and then me hitting the back of Ed and then all of us hitting the ground and then..um..

OH FUCK.

The toboggan..in all it's brand new shiny slick buttery goodness was fucking MANGLED beyond all recognition.

woops.



Ed and I kind of sat there for a bit and then grabbed the toboggan's leash and dragged it and our sorry asses, cut and bruised and - for some reason - laughing back across the field and up Mt. Everest and down the street and back to my cousin's house.

Where we hung it's broken busted shattered hull right back where we found it.

Then we left.





Yep. We left.

And didn't say a word.

TO ANYONE.

I still can't imagine my cousin going to get her shiny new oak toboggan and opening up the garage door and looking at these pieces of broken busted timber amidst, like, bits of flesh and sinew and just going:

"Whatthefuck?!"

Sorry, cousin. You probably would have enjoyed that thing.

Fucker was fast.