Sunny Side Up

Listen up, everyone. This a skill that requires careful training, concentration, and determination. This task deserves your full attention. It’s a mission that cannot be abandoned. When the going gets tough, you get tougher. It is not for the faint of heart.

            Welcome to Slick Sidewalks of January. Here at Dakota State University, you’ll be training with some of the best. First things first: ditch those yak tracks. You must go into this scenario as unprepared as a freshman from Florida seeing ice for the first time. You’re going to be practicing with all the obstacles that would challenge the most seasoned of Slick Sidewalk Masters.

            Here’s a pair of tennis shoes with the treads worn off. Now put on this heavy backpack – make sure it weighs at least half as much as you do. You have only two minutes to get from this building to the one at the opposite end of campus.

            We’ve put all the best training objects in your path. Those little cubes of salt are supposed to give you a false sense of security: they may look like ice melt but that’s no guarantee that the ice has melted. The people coming toward you on the right at an exactly calculated time will force you to go up on the edge of that drift on the left.

            There’s a sharp turn right before the building you need to get to. As you round it at top speed, the distraction factor will get cranked up. The professor who just gave you a bad grade will walk past. If you lose your balance, keep your head. The worst is coming.

Just as you are regaining your footing, that cute classmate you like is programmed to walk out of the building and wave to you. You’re going to slip! You’ll be falling! Picture a balancing act, a ballerina, a parent avoiding Legos on the living room floor! Too late, you’re down. Better luck next time, rookie.