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My husband and I spend a lot of quality time together. Between running a business together, preparing for a baby, and living under the same roof, there’s a lot of face time. Still, aside from the occasional scuffle:

“Why do you put the peanut butter in the fridge? It gets all hard and cold and won’t spread evenly. Who puts peanut butter in the fridge? Cavemen, that’s who. Not since the invention of the wheel have people put peanut butter in the fridge.”

“Yeah well, you snore.”

We manage to remain on a relatively even keel. Or so I thought.

The night started out with an innocent game of Scattergories; a board game where you roll an alphabet die to determine a letter for which players use to name a series of items, beginning with that particular letter. For some reason, whenever we play this game, Jeff becomes an evil genius with an unparalleled mastery of all languages, while I can’t for the life of me think of a single food source for squirrels that begins with the letter N. I usually leave most of my page blank except for the occasional frowny face I doodle in the corners.Yet, this particular night, when it came time to read our answers aloud, I had actually managed to scribble down a few. The category was Bad Habits.

“Nagging,” I read off proudly.

“You would know all about that,” he muttered.

I could see from the instant look of panic registering across his face that he had meant to simply think those words in his head—a little joke between him and his subconscious. So no one was more surprised than he to hear them coming out of his mouth like some unstoppable, runaway train.

I like to think I handled it like any hormonal, six-month pregnant woman would. After the crying and yelling subsided, and the last board game piece was retrieved from where it had been hurled across the room, we decided: It was time for a little getaway.

Now, I don’t ski. I tried once. And while the large trees seemed to pose no concern to the hundreds of other skiers gracing the slopes that day, I was so engrossed with how terrifying they were that I could not stop myself from skiing directly into them. It only takes one toboggan ride down the thirty feet of bunny hill as seven-year-olds swoosh by you to determine that skiing perhaps is not for you. Jeff, however, is an expert skier and was ecstatic about the prospect of a late-winter weekend at Snowshoe Mountain Ski Resort. I was sold by the promise of hot chocolate and a fireplace.

One of the first things we discovered upon arriving was the complete and total lack of cell phone service...anywhere on the mountain. “Nope! No cell service at all on the mountain!” The front desk clerk informed us cheerily, clicking away on the computer keys, seemingly impervious to our terror-stricken faces. Three days without cell phones??? What if something horrible happened at home? What if something horrible happened to the business? What if I needed Jeff to bring me a bag of Cheetos from the lodge? How could we possibly be out of touch with the outside world, unable to express any thought we had at the exact moment we felt like it? Was she crazy? Now, I realize the world functioned without cell phones for a good few years or so, but my question is…how? Finally, mildly appeased with the information that we would have high-speed Internet in our rooms (Thank god! I mean, what is this—the dark ages?), we were ready to hurry up and de-stress.

With Jeff out the door at first light the next morning, I got ready to explore all the condo’s amenities, namely, the heated indoor pool. I was not so light of heart, however, when I found I could not pull my bathing suit up over my pregnant belly. In a last minute mad dash through Target, I had grabbed the largest bathing suit I could find, figuring I had a few months before I needed a maternity suit. Wrong. After a few futile tugs at the stubborn material hovering around my midsection, I gave up. Undaunted, I decided I would just go for a walk, commune with nature, etc.

The temperature pronounced it a brisk negative one outside, and the biting wind whipped the snow around my face with such ferocity that I could not actually keep my eyes open for any extended period of time. But with a few furtive glances I soaked in all the beauty of the snow-capped mountains, and would have smiled if my lips weren’t frozen and refusing to part without the substantial tearing of skin.

All alone, I headed down a walking path alongside some private houses lined with snow-covered trees. I noticed one of the houses had decorated the property with some fake deer. “How scenic,” I thought to myself, until one of the fake deer lifted its head to watch me approach. Oh right! I’m in nature. Those are real deer. They live here. I tiptoed closer to get a better look at these beautiful creatures. That’s when I saw them. Deer everywhere. Grazing by the houses, in the woods, on the path. There must have been about fifty. God, I’ve never seen so many deer, I thought. I looked around to see if anyone else was witnessing this, but it was just me. Hmmm. They don’t seem scared of me at all. In fact, some of them are actually walking towards me. Wait, why are they all staring at me? Are the ones with pointy horns dangerous? The only deer I had ever come into contact with was at a petting zoo, where I was quickly scooped up by my dad when of the larger male deer knocked over a little boy and almost trampled him. And here I was clearly outnumbered. What if they decided to revolt? It was like Hitchcock’s The Birds, with antlers.

Suddenly terrified, I turned to make a hasty retreat (okay, slow waddle) and promptly stepped into a massive snow bank which quickly began to soak through my shoes and jeans. When I finally made it back, I peeled off my frozen clothes, and propped my feet by the fire, where I remained for the rest of the trip. It was too dangerous out there. Thankfully, Jeff had his fill of skiing to last until next winter; and driving back over the mountains of West Virginia, I clapped with glee when I heard the familiar beep of my cell phone signaling we were back in range. Time to call everyone about everything!

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