Worst Idea of the Year Thus Far

I'm derailing from doom and gloom today.  Just need a little break.

So, once upon a time, I woke up last Sunday with a strange persona.  Normally I LOVE just sitting home on my (fill in the blank).  But this particular morning I got dressed, looked super fancy, and fully expected to go to church.  But, Big D was incredibly grumpy and said he wasn't going.  So I made sweet, sweet love to him and whispered something along the lines of going canoeing with the kids.

This day was going exactly the way Big D would describe his wildest dreams.  Naughty Karen and then gross adventure time.  (See, I said I woke up with a strange persona.)

He eager beaver agreed.  Since this was one of his dreams for the summer.  And I quickly moved before I realized what I had agreed to.

It could not have been a more perfect day.  Weather was insanely divine.  We were text-book renters.  Arrived on time.  Grabbed the proper floatation devices.  And waited by the shuttle.  Not all the other renters where as fine as we were at following the rules.

We survived our third-world-country ride to the launch destination and were the first to be launched. That was neat, because we were the only ones with kids.  And also the only ones who hadn't canoed together.  Ever. Actually I'm making that up.  I don't know if we were the ONLY ones.  But because we were first, we were made a spectacle of.

It started out so romantic.  Big D in the back.  Me in the front.  Kids in the middle.  Perfect family.  Minus the fact that Big D had never had canoeing lessons.  And I have.  Big D thinks that in order to make a turn, you paddle really hard.  (Did I emphasize "really"?  Because when a turn appeared, it was like he turned the jet engine on in the back)

Now this quickly got old.  Quickly.  I was getting tired of crashing into the banks.  (Remember, we are in front of all the other boaters) And I decided I was going to be the steer-er. And kicked Big D to the front. He cried.  But we did not tip over.

Probably an hour into the trip things started to go from romantic to worse decision of the year thus far.  (Today I like using the words "thus far.")

I am comfortable and fine with steering.  I enjoy steering.  However, Big D still thought that he had to paddle as fiercely as he could when he spotted the next hair-pin turn.  I basically did not do any paddling - I was just a rudder.  And we were still crashing at a anger inducing rate.

An hour and a half into the trip we started noticing an alarming amount of very large spiders in our boat.  I don't know if I've shared this or not - but I don't do spiders.  If there is a choice of:  spider gets too close OR boat gets tipped - boat gets tipped.  Also, Ed decided he was tired of sitting nicely, and blue was wet - so the next sensible thing to do was to start screaming.  Which showcased Big D's very pleasant mood.  He started hooting and hollaring.  Yelling things to the other boaters.  Snarling and gnashing of teeth.  I literally wanted to whale him over the head with my oar.  But he was too far away.  Lucky for him.

The only non-complainer of the whole trip was Murnice.  Who just kept on paddling, aka hitting our oars with her oar and throwing water up on Ed and blue - which was not helping Ed's attitude, which only gave fuel to Big D's  fire attitude.

At this point I had mentally, emotionally, physically, and almost spiritually given up. My right arm was burning due to the fact that I had to keep my oar on the right side of the ship.  Emotionally I couldn't handle Ed crying and Big D being a fruit tart.  I wanted to just stop and snuggle the poor wet boy.  But I was too afraid of a) tipping over b) losing sight of the spiders c) drifting into more spider homes d) collecting more spiders e) wasting time f) never making it back home g) getting lost at sea.  My left butt bone had dug a hole through my small amount of muscle and large amount of jiggle and was sitting squarely on the hard metal seat.

And then, we came to a fork in the river aka stream.  We were with a large group of people.  And everybody went to the left.  And we went to the right.  Before I knew it, we were paddling against the current.  And everything began to escalate into a down-right emergency.  With one final dramatic huffy paddle, I threw our boat head on into the biggest, spideriest, reptile filled bank there was.  We rammed hard.  Which got Big D really excited.  I think he also realized that it was his turn to wear his grown up panties, take control, and get us home.


He started to paddle really hard.  Making his earlier jet engine look like a paddle boat.

The part that I didn't tell you, was that our boat had flipped around with my massive crash, and we were now backwards.

Big D didn't care.  He was going home.  And I decided I might be able to scrounge up the energy to help.

You know the Olympic boat races, where they're going so fast that bodies are flying forwards and then lunging backwards?  Yeah, we could have been medal contenders in the Olympics.  Ed was holding on for his dear life.  Not a peep was coming out.  Murnice had put her paddle away and was hanging on hard.

And we were flying.  I think we were actually flying up over the water, like they do in the cartoons.

Wouldn't you know that we ended up taking the short cut.  Beat everybody by a mile.  Or maybe a 1/2 mile.  I think the workers were a little confused to why the canoe was coming in at such a disconcerting speed backwards.

And that will be the last time that I EVER come up with ridiculous ideas.

Take Aways
1)  Just because you wake up with a different attitude towards life, doesn't necessarily mean you should embrace your new ideas.
2)  But if you choose to embrace your new ideas, be sure you know how long of a ride it's going to be.
3)  Or, just stay home.
4)  On the couch.
5)  And watch tv.