There is a phenomenon in ski towns where a large stigma is attached to talking with a punter if you’re a seasonaire. Even if this punter has done seasons before and are now only here for one week they are therefore beneath our contempt. This being the case my room mate and I made fast friends with a group of 4 male punters who, to add insult to injury, were snowboarders as well! As you may imagine this didn’t go down too well with our skiing seasonaire friends, but hey ho we had a fab week despite a few more cringe worthy moments which I will now discourse.
We skied with these punters every day for a week and we quickly discovered that they enjoyed singing…..everywhere. Especially on lifts and even more especially to strangers. This was no louty shouting from lifts to unsuspecting skiers, this was 4 part barber-shop harmony singing! This hobby had got more and more awkward throughout the week with many bemused looks from randoms on the slopes but culminated on the last day in a 17 minute bubble-lift! Imagine the scene, you’re a little French man with your friend and you climb into a small bubble with 6 manic looking british people. After an inward groan you look decidedly out of the window and hope to pass the time without too much trouble. Now imagine the gentleman to your right starts;
“bom bom bom bom”
And then his friends join in one by one, in harmony to the tune of the 50’s classic “Sandman”. Here I’ll point out that the awkwardness wasn’t yet upon me, I was ready for this barber shop onslaught, what I wasn’t ready for was for the French to join in as percussion! Suddenly the little bubble had become a little party box and we were all smiling and laughing along. Then, the tune ended and we remembered the ride was 17 minutes long and now there was a long time to wait with these strangers who were starting to look increasingly uncomfortable. The 8 of us sat in awkward silence, no one looking at anyone, the magic had faded as quickly as it had come leaving behind a mixed feeling of shame, embarrassment and the occasional giggle. I sat there next to one of the French guys, feeling his embarrassment for letting himself go in such a manner coming off him in waves. I starting wishing the bubble would just fall straight from the cable just to stop the extended pregnant pause. We all left the bubble wishing we’d started the song a little later so as to avoid a very long and very difficult journey.
The next story involving these punters didn’t so much cause me discomfort but it definitely did for them! And so intense was their awkwardness that I just had to include the story in this chronicle of awkward times. Having had a few drinks in a few different bars it got to that time where all the bars close and its time to either pay a silly price in a club or retire home. We decided to plump for the prior option and went to a French club where we had enjoyed previous nights before. On the way in we were greeted by the silky voices of the Village People followed by Gloria Gaynor. However, as it was a French club we thought nothing of it because sometimes the song choices could be a little suspect. After checking in coats we walked into the club and as I looked around I noticed a lack of girls, this is normally something I wouldn’t notice because most ski towns are very male dominated, however this wasn’t the usual 3:1 ratio like in other bars because I could only count about 4 girls on the dance floor. No one else had noticed yet though so I kept quiet and we went for a drink but the idea had been planted in my mind now and could not be shaken so after a while I went up to one of the guys and whispered
“I think it might be gay night”
This guy then very very slowly surveyed the entire club in a sweeping gaze and when his eyes returned to mine they were full of fear and shock. It was one of the most hilarious looks I had ever seen but there was definite fear written all over his face. This look spread across the group as each of them was told in turn what sort of evening we had paid to get into. I should explain that this revelation was more of a worry for one of the group then it would have been normally as he was called “gayface” by his friends and always attracted the most unwanted attention (probably because of some terribly inappropriate dancing). He had already had his bum pinched by a guy earlier in the week and had drugs slipped into his pocket, so upon hearing the news his was the most worried face among the group.
Throughout the evening us two girls were required to be “human body guards” on more than one occasion especially to the aforementioned guy who had attracted the attention of a very tall very ginger gentleman we later nicknamed “lurch”. The constant awkward glances over shoulders and self-checking to make sure their dancing wasn’t “too gay” was the highlight of the evening, however the evening was brought to a sudden end when one of the guys witnessed a three way skin-head kiss and decided that maybe we weren’t the appropriate clientele for the night.
So in conclusion to this awkward entry, always research what club night you are entering and make sure it is audience appropriate and only sing in a lift without strangers!!
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