One day last week, my son Dan, a freshman at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, went skiing with Adam, his best friend and a WPI floormate who happens to be an avid skier. Dan had two things working against him that day. First, he had never before seen snow skis in real life. Second, he gets his athletic prowess from me.

Consequently, as Adam swooshed gracefully down the slopes of Wachusett Mountain, Dan spent a good part of the time looking up at his skis and admiring their perpendicularity.

Toward the end of the day, Adam asked Dan what time it was. When Dan looked at his wrist, his heart sank. Gone was the watch he'd received as a high school graduation gift. It had obviously been torn off in the course of one of the innumerable falls he had taken during 10 runs on four trails.

Adam could see that the watch meant a lot to Dan, so without missing a beat, he set out to find it. That's right. He decided to go look for a silver watch that had been lost somewhere on a snow-covered mountain.

He took the lift to the summit and slowly slalomed down the last trail Dan had taken, searching intently for the watch. He didn't find it.