On Friday afternoon, Jolene called me at work and said, “Sharon—you, me, Martin, and Kris are going boating tomorrow morning.”
“We are?” I said.
“Yes. I’m cleaning the boat up today and we’re going to Nashville tonight to get a tube and lifejackets, and then we’re going boating tomorrow. You’ll love tubing. I promise!” she said. Jolene has a newfound love for tubing, which she is sure that everyone will share if only they have a chance to try it. I was somewhat doubtful, but who am I to rock the boat? So that evening we went to Nashville and purchased the ingredients required to make a fantastic day at the lake.
Martin decided that we would have to leave early so we could get to the lake before everyone and his dog arrived. But before we could leave, he would have to fix the boat since it wouldn’t start. (I figured you would make sure it starts before planning a trip to the lake, but I guess not.) His diagnosis was that it was a bad solenoid, and he would have to go to Advance Auto Parts when they open in the morning and get the part.
So Martin got up early and started working on the boat. He took the solenoid apart, did something to it, and put it back together. Still wouldn’t start. So he figured out which solenoid was supposed to fire the starter and purchased a new one. He put it in, and it still wouldn’t start. So he decided to forget the starter and use a screwdriver instead and was successful in starting it.
Kris & I were rather reluctant to get an early start so we had instructed Martin to call us 45 minutes before he was ready to leave—that way we wouldn’t have to get up any earlier than necessary. Jolene woke us up to ask if we wanted breakfast around 8, so we dragged ourselves out of bed and started getting ready. I made an emergency run to Wal-Mart to get some spray sunscreen so we wouldn’t have to smear all that nasty lotion all over; spray just works better.
When I arrived back home, Kris said that Martin had called to say he had finally fixed the boat, and we could leave. I finished getting ready, and we met Martin and Jolene out at Pilot where he was filling the boat with Premium Unleaded to “burn all the junk out.”
We drove the 30-45 minutes to Barren River and, when Martin was unable to find Sawyers Landing where he could launch for free, we went to the Baileys Point and paid the $3 to launch the boat. I parked my car in the parking lot among all the trucks with boat trailers, and we hopped onto the back of Martin’s truck to ride down to the ramp.
Kris and I got off and sat on a rock to the side, since we both hate the launching activities. I always have a horrid feeling that someone will forget to put on an emergency brake or forget they are in reverse instead of drive when they go to pull out, and we’ll watch a perfectly good vehicle disappear into the depths of the water. Of course, steep hills and clutches give me nightmares in the first place but when there’s water to roll back into—horrors!
We watched with pity in our eyes as a man backed his boat down to the water and then made his wife get into the driver’s seat to finish backing it down while he held onto a rope attached to the boat so he wouldn’t have to get his feet wet. So she backed down and the trailer started to go at the wrong angle; her husband told her to pull back up and go again. So she pulled up and backed down again…again at the wrong angle. (I was having dark thoughts at her husband. Hello!?! The average woman is not supposed to back a trailer. That is only for the woman that decides she has something to prove or for the woman that wants to be good at something like that. You don’t have to make her prove that she can’t back a trailer at the boat ramp where others are waiting in line to do the same thing and there are lots of Eyes to make her feel dumb. How hard is it to hold a rope?? Not very! Let her hold the rope!) Pull up and back again and this time while it wasn’t really straight, it was an angle he could live with; so he pushed the boat off and stood there holding the boat while she parked the truck.
In the meantime, Martin had backed down into the water and (thank goodness he can do this stuff with minimal help from another person: Jolene) got into the boat and let the propeller down. He tried to start the engine, but the battery was too dead to start the engine. After several tries, he figured out he would have to have a new battery, but by this time the battery was too dead to lift the propeller back up.
After Kris & I had sat upon our rock for ten or fifteen minutes, we knew something was wrong; so we moseyed over to see if we could help with the decision-making process in our own feeble little way. Martin started suggesting taking the battery out of my car, but I nipped that idea in the bud because in order to take my battery out, you have to take the wheel off. (Advance Auto wouldn’t install my battery for free because of it. Wouldn’t install my battery at all. I had to pay to have it done at the dealership.) Martin asked a guy who was loading up if he could borrow his battery long enough to lift the propeller but the guy was very unhelpful.
After being rejected by the man, Martin told me to go get my car, and he would pull up as far as he could; he would then use the jumper cables to get enough juice to it to lift the propeller. So I climbed the long, steep stairs (nearly heart attacked at the top) and drove my car down to the boat ramp. Kris and Jolene kept telling me to come closer and closer and, even when it looked to me that I would surely get sucked in by the water, closer. I finally refused to go any further because I knew we couldn’t possibly get close enough to jump it with a normal pair of jumper cables anyway. I asked Martin if it wouldn’t work to connect two pair of jumper cables together, and he said it would. So we got the pair out of my trunk and, with Jolene standing in the water holding the connecting parts, connected to my car. Martin did the necessary operations in the boat to make it possible to pull up onto dry land. (Yeah, I was having visions of Jolene getting zapped, but Martin says 12 volts won’t do anything to you.)
Martin pulled up into the parking lot, and I followed him up. He disconnected the battery and put it into the trunk. We all loaded up to go to an Advance Auto in either Scottsville or Glasgow. It had to be Advance because the battery was only a year old and should have warranty on it. Martin was pretty sure Scottsville didn’t have an Advance Auto since they are in the process of building one. He used his GPS to determine that we were ten miles from Scottsville and twenty miles from Glasgow but figured we should go to Glasgow because he was sure they would have an Advance Auto. “This doesn’t do anything for my disposition!” he said, “Let’s hurry and get this battery and get back here so we can get some Pleasure in our systems!”
The man that made his wife back down into the water had a bad battery as well. He sent her up to get their truck to reload the boat. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that the poor women had backed down to the water and had jack-knifed the trailer and it was up on one wheel, nearly on it’s side. Just before it disappeared from sight, she pulled forward and it bounced to the pavement. I really felt sorry for her.
We arrived at Advance and Martin took the old battery in to get some justice. After waiting in the car for at least twenty minutes, Kris and I sent Jolene in to investigate and make sure that something was actually happening in there. Jolene came back out to report that Advance was claiming that the battery was still good and was charging it up. Martin was buying a new battery for just in case.
Martin loaded up the two batteries, and we headed back to the lake after stopping at Wendy’s for some lunch to eat on the way back. Martin installed the old battery after stealing a wing nut from the new one to replace one that had been lost in the process. He had me park in his spot (they were somewhat sparse at that time of the day) while he took the boat down and launched it, and then I let him park in it while I found another one a little further down.
We trekked down the steps to where Kris and Jolene were trying to hold the boat at the small dock, no small task according to Kris. We got into the boat and headed out onto the water to get some Pleasure. It was after 2:00. So much for an early start!
We retreated to a place that was not highly populated to get started with this wonderful sport of tubing. While we had been on our delightful little trek into Glasgow, the sun had chosen to retreat behind the clouds, making the day seem slightly less warm. As we left the dock, Kris declared that it was too cold to get into the water and so she would not be trying tubing today. Jolene was extremely offended at this and told me that I would have to.
So Martin put the tube into the water and Jolene put on Kris’s lifejacket and got into the tube. Now this tube is a two-person tube. It has a hole into which a person’s rear is to descend and their torso and legs are to keep them from disappearing into the hole. They then demanded that I finish out the required duo on the tube.
Rather than destroy Jolene’s life forever by refusing (even though I wanted to), I reluctantly put on a lifejacket and attempted to get onto the tube. It was a disaster from the very beginning. I got one foot into the hole (there is no graceful way to get onto this thing) and of course with my added weight, it wanted to move and I wasn’t strong enough hold myself up. So I began to descend. I desperately held onto the boat and tried to get onto the tube and tried to grab onto Martin and tried to get into the tube. It wasn’t working.
(I was having visions of an incident of a number of years ago when Martin had a jet ski. I was going have Martin give me a ride. It was precarious, but with some maneuvering I managed to get onto the jet ski. I just got seated and we wobbled left, then right, and then left…into the water. (Let me just insert here that I was raised by parents that can’t swim, and so water was not a big part of my upbringing. I never learned to swim until I was at least 18ish. I’m still not a good swimmer, so if you ever need help in the water, you’re on your own. As a result of not being able to swim, my mother was always paranoid around water, which has to some extent transferred to me. It's not that I don't want to get rid of my fear; I just can't seem to shake it. I don’t like water on my face, in my eyes, nose, or ears. If it’s going to be there, I at least like to be intentional about it and know about it at least 15 seconds in advance so I can get a proper breathing routine going, as in NOT breathing. I've discovered that, as much as I'd like to, I just can't breathe under water.) If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had just learned to swim in the previous few years, I would have inhaled half the lake at the jet ski routine, but I was able to hold back and inhale only about a pint or so.)
So here I was, half on the tube, half in the water and trying to find a firm foundation—any one would do. I REALLY didn’t want to go fully into the water, which was surprisingly warmer than I thought it would be, but still, I wasn’t mentally prepared to be fully immersed. Martin finally grabbed the tube and got it under control, and I got up on it. I should have just abandoned ship right there and gotten back into the boat, but Jolene was so determined that I would love it that I decided to at least try it.
Martin hooked us up and I instructed him in no uncertain terms that he should go slowly, and if I wanted to quit, there would be an immediate termination of forward motion and a rescue operation should ensue. Jolene instructed me to lean forward and hold onto the handles as Martin slowly eased the boat into motion. I was immediately unimpressed with the results. We seemed to be plowing water, and I had visions of disappearing into the depths like the aforementioned vehicle. Martin eventually got up enough speed to lift us up above the water, and I still was not impressed.
Now Jolene had told us how sore her rear had been from her prior joy rides, but it did not prepare me for the beating that I was now privy to. Water that had mere seconds earlier been pliable was now as hard as a concrete surface scraping along my rear. After 15 to 20 seconds of that brutality, I decided that something had to happen. I stiffened my body to attempt to raise my rear a few inches, which resulted in my foot going down into a wave, which in turn resulted in a face full of water for me. Remember that I don’t like water in my face and eyes? I was suddenly blind, receiving a beating, and wanting OUT!!!
“Jolene, get me OUT of here!” I demanded. “NOW! Tell him to stop!” Jolene was laughing but recognized the desperation in my voice. She thought that I might be crying. I wasn’t…yet. (But you know what (most) children do when they are spanked, or as in this case, beat with a 2x4? They cry.) If it was going to last much longer, I probably could have, because it was painful! She managed to convey to Martin to stop, and with the decrease in momentum, it felt like we were going to somersault backward into the water. I mentally tried to prepare myself for the dunking…but it never came.
Martin circled around, and when I could finally peer through the water in my eyes, I could see that Kris was giggling hysterically. I wanted to pitch her into the water headfirst. She couldn’t contain her delight in my unfortunate experience, for it had (evidently) been a hilarious sight. I still wasn’t amused. Martin pulled the boat around where I could climb into the back. I grabbed a towel and retreated to the front of the boat where I dried off.
Kris still refused to get in, so Jolene decided to have a go at it alone. We dragged her around for a while. Kris sat in her seat occasionally glancing at me and going into gales of laughter. After a while she said, “My smile muscles are so tired! This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while.” Smile muscles, my foot!
Jolene tried putting a pillow under her that had been brought along just for the occasion but it still didn’t totally solve the bruised butt syndrome. I think she actually has a raw spot.
My rear still hurts. Let me describe the feeling for you. Picture this: You are just learning to ice skate. You’ve never been ice-skating before and you get up on your skates for the first time and BAM! You fall flat on your rear, no preparation; just BAM! You get up and BAM! You go down again. You repeat this process, say, 3 or 4 times before you give up because of the pain. That is how your butt would feel. Church wasn’t exactly a comfortable place to sit this morning.
After Jolene had her fill of tubing, we rode around the lake for a while. Martin offered to let her learn to ski, but she wasn’t in to trying it at this point. He knew better than to offer it to me. I had enough water plowing for a good long time. We had less than two hours of boating for all of our troubles. Martin had to get back home to go to a meeting.
So ended my career of tubing. I tried to like it, I really did. Both Kris and Martin think that the problem is that I’m not committed to the journey when I get into the water. I agree. I knew I wasn’t committed to the journey when they forced me out of the boat, but I was trying to be a good sister and help a little sister have a good time. And all I get in return is the hysterics of those that saw it/hear about it. But give me a little credit; at least I tried.
I think I might have convinced Jolene to take this tube back and get more of a raft style that would have air between you and the water. Maybe I’ll try that one time if she does. Maybe, but Kris is going first.
