Snowed In JOW

Ruth and I are taking advantage of a kind offer to stay with friends and relations (actually they are both) in Lake Tahoe for the rest of the week. I am very much looking forward to the trip. I may even get a chance to try skiing again. It has been a while so I did few simple warm-ups to make sure I was prepared for the slopes:

• I went to the grocery store and paid $30 to sit in the walk-in freezer for a half an hour. Afterwards, I burned two $20 dollar bills to warm up.
• I soaked my gloves and stored them in the freezer after every use.
• I begin wearing my glasses with glue smeared on the lenses.
• I threw away a hundred dollar bill every day.
• I put small angular pebbles in my shoes, lined them with crushed ice, and then tightened a C-clamp around my toes.
• I bought a new pair of gloves and immediately threw one away.
• I went to McDonald's and insisted on paying $9.50 for a hamburger. I also made sure I was in the longest line.
• I filled a blender with ice, hit the pulse button and let the spray blast my face.
• I put on as many clothes as I could and then proceed to take them off to practice going to the bathroom.
• I tied a cinder block to each foot with old belts and climbed a few flights of stairs.
• I sat on the outside of my second-story window ledge with my skis on and poles in my lap for 30 minutes.
• I tied my feet together at the ankles, lay down flat on the floor; then, holding a banana in each hand, and practiced getting to my feet.

I also looked up a few terms and definitions to refresh my memory. Here they are:
Skier
One who pays an arm and a leg for the opportunity to break them.
Alp
One of a number of ski mountains in Europe. Also a shouted request for assistance made by a European skier on a U.S. mountain. An appropriate reply: "What Zermatter?"
Avalanche
One of the few actual perils skiers face that needlessly frighten timid individuals away from the sport. See also: Blizzard, Fracture, Frostbite, Hypothermia, Lift Collapse.
Bindings
Automatic mechanisms that protect skiers from potentially serious injury during a fall by releasing skis from boots, sending the skis skittering across the slope where they trip two other skiers, and so on and on.
Bones
There are 206 in the human body. Two of those bones (the ones in the middle ear) have never been broken in a skiing accident.
Ski!
A shout to alert people ahead that a loose ski is coming down the hill.
Another warning skiers should be familiar with is "Avalanche!" - which tells everyone that a hill is coming down the hill.

The resort is walking distance from a casino. So a couple of gambling jokes are called for:
A man walks into a butcher's shop and inquires of the butcher: "Are you a gambling man?"
The butcher replies "Yes".
So the man said: "I bet you $50 that you can't reach up and touch that meat hanging on the hooks up there."
The butcher says "I'm not betting on that."
" But I thought you were a gambling man" the man retorts.
" Yes I am" says the butcher," but the steaks are too high."

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A betting man had a dream in which he saw a huge glowing number "5" made of gold and sparkled with diamonds. That day in the racing form he saw that the #5 horse in the fifth race was named "The Fifth Element. This had to be more than a coincidence. He decided to stack the deck even more:
- He ate five bowls of cereal for breakfast and drank five cups of coffee
- He went for a five mile jog
- He took a five minute shower
- He sat in his car for five minutes before starting it up
- He drove to the racetrack and parked in the fifth stall in the fifth row
- He entered through the fifth admissions gate
- He went to the fifth betting window and bet $555 on the fifth horse in the fifth race
- He went and sat in the fifth row of the bleachers making sure there were five people sitting on either side of him
The horse came in fifth.