3 or 4 years ago a March storm was passing thru and then appeared to set up shop at our ski area. My daughter was 11 at the time and had reached the stage where she was rocking anything/everything on the mountain (and hard to keep up with) so we decided it was the type of storm that warranted missing a couple days of school over and we trekked down there for 2 days of mid week skiing. The storm was laying snow down in buckets, but the weather was tough (high winds, cold temps, and tough visibility) so it was mainly the hard-core locals out there. We were hitting the singles line to get laps in before the snow got too chopped up, and on our third or fourth trip up the hill she got chaired up with three 20-something loud, obnoxious bro bras. Had I been paying better attention, I'd have hopped in front of her and swapped spots, but as it was, I ended up riding up with three 50-something gals on the chair right behind. I'm sitting there a little uncomfortable and hoping that the dudes would be somewhat sensitive to the youngster on board and that she wouldn't be miserable, and the first thing the gals next to me on my chair do is to start talking about the pain-in-the-ass dudes in front of us and their antics in the lift line. After a minute or two of that I told them that they weren't helping my peace of mind, as the short member on the left of that foursome in front of us was my pre-teen daughter. I got an "OH DEAR" and "Uh Oh" in response, and now there's 4 dedicated sets of eyes watching the chair in front of us and we've got a running commentary going guessing what the conversation in front of us is about. For the first quarter of the lift ride up, it's obvious that the dudes are in their own little world (but not being over-the-top loud or obnoxious) and completely ignoring the little girl on their left, and we're in agreement that this is probably a good thing. As the chair starts going up the steep pitch however, I saw one of my daughters poles start waving around and pointing like a music director's baton, and all three bro bras heads simultaneously swivel to the left to stare at my daughter (almost as if somebody hit a movie cue). The gal on my right says "huh, this might get interesting" as we watch my daughter jump into the middle of the dudes conversation and not let up. For the remainder of the ride up, my daughter's pole is swinging wildy around, one of the guys on her chair is following suit, and we're hearing laughter and bits of animated conversation (I found out later the bro bras weren't locals, and my daughter was telling them where to find good tree skiing, to be careful "in there" because it gets pretty steep and tight, not to drop into "that line" unless they can huck,...) The gal next to me says "I think your daughter is holding her own up there" and one of the other gals laughs out loud and said "hell, she's holding court..." When we got to the top and off-loaded, my daughter is standing there BS-ing with the 3 bro bras, and the 3 gals and I ski over to hear "... hey, you wanna ski a couple runs with us???" My daughter pondered it a minute, said something to the effect of "... better not -- gotta keep my Dad out of trouble..." The dudes hit her with high 5s and take off, the 3 gals with me start laughing uncontrollably, and my daughter looks at me like "what's with those weirdos?" I'm pretty much speechless at this point, shake my head, point down the hill and said "let's ski". Great day on the slopes. Didn't see the dudes again, but saw the gals a couple more times. Each time we saw them, the laughter would start up.
