So, I am a Pre-Games Volunteer Track Host at the Whistler Sliding Centre. Essentially, this means I donate my time and expertise to a multi-billion dollar organization in exchange for a fleece pull-over and the opportunity to attend a volunteer-only scrap booking seminar. But it also means that I get to wear a lanyard with official venue credentials and look important and knowledgeable for about four hours every second weekend throughout the summer. And really, who can argue with that kind of opportunity?

Okay, so you know in that movie Simon Birch, he is convinced that God has put him on the earth for one purpose only, and he is just chilling out waiting to see what that purpose is.

Well, last Friday I officially fulfilled my purpose.

So as a track host, I show visitors to around the centre, explaining the sliding sports, the track features and answering questions. Often we have groups that come to the track, and last week our supervisors were looking for a few people to take this particular group of kids on a tour.

Now, without tooting my own horn I am uniquely suited to this volunteer position because I am a skeleton athlete.
(Toot. Toot. Oops ... how did that slip out ... ?)

But wait!

Not only am I a skeleton athlete, Whistler is my home track, and I have made the minute long trip down the frozen toilet bowl on more than one occasion. So I can tell people exactly what this track is like.

But wait!

This particular tour group happened to be a squadron of Air Cadets , and well, hehemmm ... turns out I was the Cadet Squadron Commander of the 803 North Shore Sabre Squadron back in my day.

But wait!

This particular Air Cadet group happened to be a francophone squadron from Val d'Or, Quebec, and well, hehemmm ... I didn't do those Concours D'Art Oratoire speeches in grade two for nothing.

So, in summary, I, a French-speaking-anglophone-Quebecoise-former-air-cadet-skeleton-athlete, led a Francophone Air Cadet Squadron, hosted by an English Air Cadet Squadron on a bilingual tour of a bobsleigh/skeleton track on which I have slid.

Coincidence? I think not!

Oh crap. What happens when your earthly usefulness has expired?