Dear Rex,
Thank you for your caring letter of March 27th. I hope your fractured leg has healed and the skin grafts have finally taken. After all of the tissue rejection problems you experienced while on vacation here, a little good news would certainly be in order.
Since your unfortunate accident in our “breakthrough” class, we’ve made a number of curriculum changes. I thought I’d share some of them with you, so you’ll know what to expect next year.
First, we’ve dropped cliff jumping from the beginner’s class. The attrition rate was just too high. And by popular demand, we’ve added one restroom break to each day. You’ll also be happy to hear that we’ve decided to maintain the most popular part of the lesson: exchanging underwear with each other at noontime. This was particularly popular with the male students.
Next, we’ve added blindfolded skiing to the breakthrough program. What we’re trying to do is teach the students to ski by the sense of smell. We’ll be taking students up to the top of Dead Man’s Couloir and instructing them to follow their sense of smell to the outhouse behind chair 39. Once students learn to forego their dependence on sight, skiing backward in waist-deep powder should be easy.
I hope your recovery is going well and we look forward to seeing you next winter. Don’t forget about our exciting fall discount: ski for half-price during September. See you next year!
Dear Mrs. Rubenstein,
We are sorry to hear about your daughter Clarissa’s illness. Normally eating tree bark does not represent a significant problem for children under the age of twelve. After speaking with Dabney, the instructor of her class, we learned that the unfortunate situation began after Clarissa blew out of a left-hand turn and crashed into a stand of Blue Spruce trees.
She immediately became disoriented and thought she was Ethel Merman, where she launched into a raucous verse of “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues,” frightening a moose out of hibernation. After it bared its incisors, Clarissa struck it with the blunt end of her ski pole, sending the moose to the Willingmeda Highlands Veterinary Hospital, where it’s been in ICU ever since.
Once again, we apologize for the incident and are sorry that you had to cancel your ski vacation to Willingmeda Highlands three hours after you arrived from Lapland. As soon as the Ski Patrol can locate the wallet that your husband threw at the police, we will be happy to return it to him. We hope that you enjoyed the time that you were here and look forward to seeing you again, next year. Think snow!
Dear Mr. Kackabuller,
Thank you for choosing the Willingmeda Highlands Ski School during your recent trip to Iowa. While we certainly appreciated the male hookers that you sent over after your lesson on February 14th, the ski school is not in the habit of accepting non-currency gratuities. Normally, guests will reward their instructors with cash, gold doubloons, common stock in their corporations, or other easily redeemable forms of currency.
The two “entertainers” remained in Willingmeda Highlands for over a month after your departure. Having nowhere to stay, we had to let them sleep above the boot dryers in the instructor’s locker room. One of them hit on the Director of the Children’s Ski School, necessitating a restraining order until a spot on our Guest Services team opened up.
Thank you again for your generosity and we look forward to your next visit to Willingmeda Highlands!
Dear Mrs. Shapiro,
I received your letter of August 23rd and was disappointed to hear that you did not enjoy your ski vacation at Willingmeda Highlands last week. The Ski School went to an inordinate amount of effort to make your visit memorable. Particularly the snow making below chair 15. It’s not easy maintaining a custom, beginning ski run in the middle of August, but we do what we can for our guests.
Jephthah, your ski instructor, was quite taken with your unique skiing style. He told me that in over thirty years teaching skiing, he had never seen anyone ski with garbage cans tied to their wrists. He also thanked you for the night up at the Redcliff Inn and was sorry that “he was too drunk to eat the whole thing.” He said you’d know what that meant.
The Willingmeda Highlands Ski School would like to invite you back to Iowa for your next skiing vacation. It is our hope, however, that you will be able to schedule it during our winter season. It’s difficult to entice quality ski instructors from your homeland at this time of year and we want to provide you with a memorable stay. Thank you again for choosing Willingmeda Highlands as your “winter” destination and we look forward to seeing you again.
P.S. We have sent your dentures back to you via Federal Express. Sorry for the mix-up!
Dear Mr. Ticicopatelogo,
I am happy to report that we finally found your wife! Apparently, she got misplaced into a children’s ski class at Beddingris Bluff and has spent the last three weeks with a busload of Special Olympians. They just returned from a tour of southwest Michigan and apart from a few animal bites, she is doing well.
During your stay, you mentioned that you were disappointed with the quality of ski instruction that you received. I’d like to take a moment to explain why we fell short and what we are doing to correct the problem prior to your next visit.
First, we weren’t entirely sure what language you spoke. It sounded a little like a cross between Sentinelese and Tagalog, but you tipped worse than a Motswana, so we took a shot and assigned you to Horgid, one of our new Lithuanian telemark instructors. That would explain your lack of progress on your snowboard.
After three frustrating hours of attempting to penetrate your dialect, Horgid was forced into a series of modified International signs, written in the snow.
The other students in your class also took issue with adapting to some of your country’s unique customs. While most of the students went along with having lunch at 9:15 am, they found it inconvenient to take restroom breaks every 15 minutes. We realize that in your country, a full bladder is considered “dirty,” but that practice was not fully embraced by the rest of the class.
To circumvent some of the issues that you experienced, we have taken a number of steps to enhance your next ski vacation at Willingmeda Highlands.
We would like you to complete the attached 46-page questionnaire. This will help us to identify your unique customs. Second, we would like you to leave your wife and family at home. We feel that we only have enough energy to focus on one Ticicopatelogo family member at a time, and quite frankly, your children scared the daylights out of the wildlife.
Finally, we would appreciate it if you would get all of your inoculations before you leave home. Although he still got paid, Horgid did not appreciate waiting six hours for you in the lobby of the Willingmeda Highlands Valley Medical Center on your first day.
Once again, thank you for choosing Willingmeda Highlands for your ski vacation. We look forward to seeing you again next year!
