This year for spring break, we had the sheer joy of a week of skiing in utah, land of the greatest snow on earth. We had the fun of traveling with my sweet husband’s brother and his wife. Not just any brother, but his identical twin. You see, MSH is actually a matched set. And, while it is not the subject of this writing, MSH2 is married to my college roommate. Perhaps the subject one of those twin studies about the twins who are separated at birth and end up married to sisters identical houses with their hair parted on the same side, but in this case it unfolded in a much more complicated way that that. Aside from the fact that this arrangement means that our children are cousins and genetic half sisters, it also means that we have a lot of fun together. And in this instance, my dear friend and I have discovered the perfect new nickname for each other after 25 odd years of friendship. MSH2 is forced to spend large swatches of time in unit 48 doing a deal over the course of the trip which leaves MSH with the two ladies and our kids traveling as a pack. Thus, Sister Wife is born.
So, MSH, MSH2, sister wife and I plan a great ski trip. Condo unit 48 is the perfect set up and the snow is amazing. Along the way, for all the reasons one does, we elect to engage the services of ski instructors – via ski school for the younger kids in the group, and on a morning dumping with snow for MSH, myself, sister wife and my eldest niece (MSH2, poor chap, is back at unit 48 pacing on the phone to the east coast). The employment of outdoor sports professionals: ski instructors, fly fishing guides, tennis pros and the like goes hand in hand with the practice of providing a gratuity, more commonly known as tipping.
Tipping is without question one of those lightening rod issues that can tell you a great deal about someone’s background. There is a difference between people who, say, tip the maître’d in a fancy restaurant in order to better their chances at a good table and people who inherently know the per person/per day rate to tip the housekeeper at the gasparilla inn down in boca grande. MSH and MSH2, bounced on their grandfather’s knee to the dulcet tones of you boys will love hotchkiss and yale from a tender age, definitely fall in the latter camp. Never mind that MSH eschewed Harvard for the “artsy” ivy league and had to answer his grandfather’s weekly telephonic inquiry how’s yale? by saying uh, grandpa, I don’t go to yale, I go to brown. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT? would resound over the wire in retort each and every time.
Tipping as a practice dates back a fair way – in a recent family movie night screening of zefirrelli’s Romeo and Juliet which among other things prompted my little girl to ask why can’t there just be a happy ending?, I noted with eagerness that even ROMEO tipped the nurse after she relayed juliet’s plan to marry him.
But MSH squared don’t have such an easy time forking over a fistful of cash to the likes of Bill the ski instructor. Or, in the case of MSH in particular, the discomfort with the very act of tipping causes a spasm of sorts: some people might eschew the practice altogether, but not MSH.
We are nearing the end of the two hour session with Bill, most of which has been conducted in a blinding white out as the second of two feet of fresh powder falls around us. The sun has finally emerged, bill has expertly guided us to a section of the mountain where no one has been and we are gazing down a steep slope of virgin powder. My 14 year old niece and bill move down the slope like poetry in motion, followed shortly thereafter by sister wife, who’s been skiing since she was in cloth diapers. This leaves MSH and me. I am just inept at skiing this level of fresh snow – throw me down any hill in the ice-ridden catskills and I can do it. But two feet of fresh fluffy snow and my skis just have no idea what to do. Bill has helped, no doubt, but I am still a panicker. MSH goes ahead and is doing well (he is, after all, a natural athlete) but all of the sudden he bites it hard and manages to lose both skis.
On an ice hill, a yard sale is easily managed by crawling up and down until you can collect all of your gear and mount up to continue down the hill. But in waist deep fresh powder, it’s a bit tricky and it took even sporty MSH the better part of 15 minutes to right the ship, clean the boots and bindings and continue. So by the time he joined Bill and our crew, he was equal parts exhausted, humiliated and frustrated. And that magic moment of saying thanking and pressing an Andrew Jackson into the palm of the instructor had come. MSH must have been suffering from some sort of white out or altitude induced brain cramp, because what I saw in his hand was not one, not two, but three $20 bills . . . for a two hour lesson that was $235.
Thank you says Bill, maintaining eye contact at all times with MSH (this must be the protocol). Then, surreptitiously looking down, Bill notices the cash in his hand. thank you thank YOU thaNK YOU THANK YOU and then he splutters out some stream of consciousness rant about how he can now get his audi serviced and Bill and MSH share a manly exchange about dealers and how they rip you off every time you take the car in yeah, chuckles MSH in his best deep voice $500 to change the windshield wipers!
Bill skis off and we all turn to look at MSH who confirms the preposterous tip. What becomes clear when I go to pick up my big girl and her cousin from ski school, is that Bill has gone back and radioed the ski school staff in morse code:
If you have anyone from the twin father family in your group, stand by for a ginourmous tip.
Luke, the affable brit with a pediatrician wife (what better place for a ski instructor-pediatrician match up than utah, land of powder + large families?), stood next to me for a solid 8 minutes. It’s possible, of course that he found me to be delightful company with my ski helmet hair smashed all over my head and a trickle of cold induced runniness dripping off the end of my nose, but more likely that he was looking for the cash.
From that moment on, the issue of THE TIP became a leitmotif for the rest of the trip as we discussed how much to tip the ski instructors, the ski shuttle driver, the concierge at the condo complex whom I called enough that I made her a favorite on my iphone. Second to last day of the trip, MSH makes his usual trip to the ATM in the ski lodge to stock up on a wad of $20s that he peels off at will: three ski instructors, Mr. Van Driver, Ms. Concierge, the Jack Mormon who gave us a tour of salt lake city en route to the airport….his awkwardness over the very act of tipping muted by the joy on the faces of the recipients of his beneficence.
Next time, I am going to make change of the $20s for $5s. He can feel like he’s doling out the big money but our bank account will retain it’s integrity at the end of the trip: best of both worlds.
