Her Next Chapters

76. My Favorite April Fools Story: A Disrupted Day with a Perfect Ending

• Christina Kohl

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A chance encounter on the ski slopes of Winter Park on April Fool's Day 1995 led to meeting my husband in the most unexpected way possible.

• Brief encounter with a skilled skier who complimented my skiing ability by calling me "Susie Chapstick"
• Had my skis stolen after lunch, causing a frustrating afternoon of riding ski lifts down, filing reports, and borrowing equipment
• Discovered a woman had mistakenly taken my skis just as I made one final check with ski patrol
• Reconnected with the morning's mystery skier on the train ride home when he asked if I ever got my skiing lesson
• We rode back to Denver together, talking the whole way—and that unexpected reconnection became the start of our story (we’ve been married 27 years!) 
• Important life lessons about checking in one more time and embracing life's messy, unpredictable moments

If you're in that in-between season and want support navigating the next chapter of your career, reach out to me at Christina@HerNextChapters.com. And if you're a podcast listener who isn't receiving my weekly newsletter, email me to get added to the list!


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Christina Kohl:

Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started. Hey, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters.

Christina Kohl:

I have a story to share with you. So today that I'm recording this, it's April 1st and if you're listening in real time, this episode will go live tomorrow, on April 2nd. But in honor of April 1st, I have a story to share and if you follow me on LinkedIn, you've already had a chance to read the story. But this is kind of monumental. This is like a life-changing thing and it really goes, and it's perfect with April Fool's Day right, april Fool's. How does that even come about, like, what is that all about For me? I live in Colorado Fools how does that even come about? What is that all about For me? I live in Colorado and it can be a spring day where it's warm and sunny and, in the seventies, blue sky. You can have a perfect morning and then that afternoon you're going to have a snowstorm that drops a foot of snow April Fools. So that's my understanding of where April Fools has come from, and obviously now it's a cultural thing where you play jokes on friends and family and loved ones. Well, the universe played a big joke on me on April Fools a long time ago, and that's what I want to share with you today is that story.

Christina Kohl:

And to set it up, I was on a ski trip up in the mountains to Winter Park, our favorite place to go, and this is before I was married. We're talking 1995. So a long time ago, and I was skiing with a friend. We were on a run. She's a better skier than I and we're on a run. I was a little bit over challenged, let's say she was at the bottom of the run, politely waiting for me. I was in the middle. I was taking a deep breath, trying to figure out my line. It was a mogul run, which is the bumps, the hills on the side of the mountain, and trying to like collect myself to figure out where I was going to go next.

Christina Kohl:

In the meantime, this cute guy comes through the trees and sideways and stops right in front of me and we struck up a conversation basically about how I needed a lesson, like I was overwhelmed and he looked like a great skier, based on you know what I saw of him skiing over to me and you know from his perspective he just saw. I'm just going to tell my perspective. Um and so we had just a brief encounter and then I skied down and, knowing he was watching me, I skied really well because I knew he was being watched and I just kind of went for it and didn't fall and navigated all those moles. As I get down to the bottom to stop, I hear his voice yell out you don't need lessons. You look like Susie Chapstick. And for those of you who don't know that reference, susie Chaffee was an Olympic skier back in the day and she did these commercials for Chapstick. And for those of you who don't know that reference, susie Chaffee was an Olympic skier back in the day and she did these commercials for Chapstick and became known as Susie Chapstick and so that was his compliment to me that I was a great skier, and so that was a fun little story and interaction. And honestly I didn't really think about him later on, because it's a big mountain and there's skiers all over the place and you know, I was with my girlfriend no-transcript. Here's the rest of the story. April Fool's right. So fun little encounter. Okay, yay, that's neat.

Christina Kohl:

And then we break for lunch and we're at the top of the mountain and when you, you know if you're not a skier, this is probably very obvious but you take your skis off, you put them in a rack, just like you would a bike rack. You put your skis in a rack and then you go inside to eat or, you know, outside if it's a nice day. So we had done that, we had our meal, we came back out, my poles were where I left them, my skis were gone. I look all around, there's no skis and, as I said, I'm at the top of the mountain. So how do you get down without skis? So we reported it and told whoever we found who must have gone inside. I don't remember it's 30 years ago, but we reported the fact that my skis were missing. We looked and, looked and looked to see if somebody had moved them. They weren't around, they were just gone.

Christina Kohl:

So we had to get on the ski lift to go down and thankfully my girlfriend Sandy was a great sport and rode down with me with her skis on. And oh my gosh, you guys, so many people as you're going down the lift, other people are coming up just opposite of you and they're taunting me, teasing me. Oh, you can't handle the Jane, oh, it's too rough for you. We're yelling back no, somebody stole my skis. Like that sucks.

Christina Kohl:

Like having all these conversations going down the lift, which is highly unusual to do in the, in the mountains in the ski season anyway, it's highly unusual to ride the lift down. It's quite embarrassing, humiliating to do that, but it was our only option to get down. And then we had to figure out that's where I put in a report, filed a report with ski patrol about my skis being taken and figured out how to ride the bus from the bottom of Mary Jane to the bottom of Warner Park, because that's where the ski train picks us up. So instead of skiing and here we are, navigating all of this and going to the ski patrol to report the missing skis, figuring out where the bus route, riding the bus, getting there, going into the ski rentals, talking them into giving me a loaner so we can get one more run in. And, sandy, she was with me the whole way. She could have just said, hey, I'll see you at the train and kept skiing by herself. But no, she navigated all this with me.

Christina Kohl:

All of this frustration, I mean the whole gamut of emotions Anger, embarrassment, sadness, just hopelessness, and then fear, like how much is it going to cost me to replace these skis? All of these things are going through my mind. And then we skied that last run, one more run than I did on borrowed skis, turned those skis in and thought you know what, let's just check with ski patrol one more time before we leave. And you guys, when I walked in the door it's just a little tiny office there was a lady holding my skis. She was turning them in. She picked them up by mistake. They looked like her skis but they were longer and she really struggled all afternoon. I felt bad for her at that point because she kept falling out of them and was really struggling, but she just made an honest mistake, and the timing, though, was perfect because, literally, she was there turning them in when I was there to check one final time before I had to leave. The train's not going to wait for me. So I got my skis, and now I'm feeling relief and happy and forgiveness and excitement and all of that, and so we get on the train.

Christina Kohl:

After this whole whirlwind of unexpected a lot of unexpected things during the day. Well, lo and behold, as we're walking through the train to get some food, there's a little restaurant car. I hear this voice in the crowd say did you ever get your lesson? And this is like a party atmosphere at this point. Right, people are standing up, there's music playing. So I turn around and look and there he is, the guy from the morning run that called me Susie Chapstick. And I look at him and I said no, because you never gave it to me. And that man is my now husband, and that's why I'm choosing to tell the story today.

Christina Kohl:

Obviously, because it's April 1st, but it's also the 30th anniversary of that encounter, of that day of pivots, and you know I love to talk about pivots on this podcast. That was a day of talk about April fools, like, okay, it was a great start to the day, and then this frustrating, irritating, annoying, all those things afternoon, and then the oh rejoice, and then, oh, I met someone that I want to get to know better, and all of that happened in the course of a few hours. So that was the universe's April Fool's joke on me, one that I'm glad we accept, and it's just so funny that it came with all of those extras. And so I hope April Fool's was kind to you, given that this is going live on April 2nd. And I guess the things that I hope that you take from this story well, first of all, the importance of checking in just one more time, whether that for me, that was checking in with ski patrol one more time. But you know, for you, if you're at the job search, it might be networking, following up, taking another chance. You just never know. If I hadn't have gone in there, I might not have ever gotten my skis back. Gone in there, I might not have ever gotten my skis back, or I may have to have driven all the way back to Winter Park on another day to pick up those skis that were turned in if they connected them to me.

Christina Kohl:

And also, sometimes our days can be messy. We don't always have the perfectly scripted, everything goes our way kind of day. So if today feels like a mess, remember you don't know the ending yet. Things can turn around and it could be like the best day of your life. So just be open to that and maybe your ski train moment is just ahead. And if you, my friend, are in that in-between season and you want support navigating the next chapter of your career, I would love to help.

Christina Kohl:

Reach out to me at Christina at HerNextChapterscom, and you may not know, I have a newsletter. I send out a weekly newsletter in support of this podcast. So if you're a listener to the podcast and you're not receiving the newsletter, send me an email and I'll make sure that you are added to the newsletter so you don't miss anything. All right, well, I hope you enjoyed my April Fool's story. I hope that you have positive April Fool's stories of your own. If you want to share them, I would love to hear. Either send me an email, send me a direct message on LinkedIn. I just you know I consider us friends and would love to hear your stories too. All right, well, that's it for today. Happy April, happy spring. I'll talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.