My friend and business partner, Lyle, recently bought a boat. I use the term "boat" loosely. In the world of boating, this is the equivalent of a power chair. She is 10 feet long on a hot day. Her "power source" is a 12 volt car battery. Which Lyle claimed would last for 12 hours. The little electric motor that propels her has a top output of 3 horse power. It fits entirely in the bed of my Ford pick up. This boat is best suited for fishing on mid to large size ponds. I have dubbed her the USS Death Star.
Last weekend, I got the hankering to drink on water. I am fully aware that this is not an impulse felt by normal humans. I surrendered to my unusual urge and borrowed the Death Star from Lyle. My lovely wife, Ginger, looked at the silly thing in the back of my Ford. Laughing through tears, she informed me that it would be a cold day in hell before she would venture onto water in that boat with me drinking. Undaunted, I filled my cooler with a special blend of Vodka and Lemonade and made directly for the nearest TVA lake: Fort Patrick Henry.
With no small effort, the Death Star was muscled out of my truck and into the water. But at last! My strange desire for the combination of lake water and ethyl alcohol was fulfilled. The Death Star made a fairly decent speed out of the cove where I launched her. The vodka and lemonade was tasty, delicious and very satisfying.
I spent the next three hours just trolling around the lake. Sure people were pointing and laughing at me. I was on a ridiculous boat and wearing only bright red shorts and sunglasses. But I really did not give a fuck. The sun felt so good on my skin as I worked on my first good tan of the year. All my troubles and stresses of late just faded away to the relaxing day on the lake. I achieved an almost Zen like state of outdoorsmanship and drunkardness.
The only thing that broke me from my dream like state was when a real boat came zipping by. The Death Star did not do well in the waves and wake of other boats. I had to turn her directly into the waves to keep her from turning over. But all was well and Dirty Ert was immersed in a little redneck heaven.
Suddenly and at the farthest point from my truck, all hell broke loose. I downed my last bit of vodka. Longingly, I looked at the bottom of the jar, hoping more vodka would appear. As I chided myself for not bringing more booze, I heard it. The little motor that pushed the boat around, gurgled, stumbled and stopped.
"What the fuck?" I asked, aloud.
I was sitting on a swivel fishing chair. As I turned around to inspect the motor, I heard what sounded like coins hitting the boat floor. The chair broke underneath me. Grasping for a handhold, I tossed up my vodka jar. My body flailed around like a mannequin dropped from an airplane. The vodka jar landed squarely on my chest. After what seemed like an eternity, I achieved personal and watercraft balance. My feet hung off the left side of the Death Star. My right hand and head off the right. The remnants of the chair ate into my back. Taking a deep breath, I began planning how to recover from this ridiculous position.
Then I heard a really big boat go blasting past me. Panic began to set in. I knew that big ass waves were headed my way. I cursed the big boat heavily.
There are no words that I can find to describe what happened next. I was drunker than a five legged frog, only wearing a pair of shorts and flung oddly across a small boat. The wake of the big boat hit and tossed me around like a rag doll. At some point, I lost any sense of where my arms and legs got off to. In the middle of this horrible situation, I figured "Well, fuck, there goes the boat and my favorite cooler."
Old Neptune himself must have stepped in and saved me, I certainly did nothing productive to save myself. The storm passed. The Death Star, her contents and myself were miraculously spared harm.
As I regained my bearings, I heard laughing. There were people fishing on the bank who had witnessed the whole thing. The motor refused to come back to life. The entire time I spent diagnosing the problem, the humiliation from the shore fishers continued. I could hear them, and their liberal use of the terms idiot and dumbass.
Finally, I gave up on the motor and dejectedly picked up the paddle. This brought a new round of laughing from the shore. I motivated myself to paddle hard; thinking of hitting the bastards in the nose. I found myself three miles up shit creek, but I did have a paddle.
After one mile of paddling, my tired poor-old ass just gave out. I was exhausted. With what little strength I had left, I grounded the Death Star on a rock beach in the woods. Desperate for any sustenance, I ate the ice out of my cooler. The sun was still high, so I just stretched out on the rocks and hoped for divine guidance. After an hour of breathing heavily and cursing, inspiration came. I decided to just hook the battery back up and see what happens. One hour of heavy thinking, that was just all I had in me.
Neptune must have smiled on me again. The motor did come to life, only it was not lively. The boat was propelled forward, but at a painfully slow pace. A fish actually passed me. I swear the mother fucker was laughing at me.
It took almost three hours to cover two miles back to the boat ramp. People in their yards actually stopped and stared at me. I could read their thoughts. "Why is he going so slow?" I waved to them, as if this was my normal speed. I figured the only way to salvage any dignity, was to act like this was just the way I roll.
As I loaded the Death Star back into my Ford; I thought of Lyle bragging to me that the battery lasted 12 hours. I made a mental note to shove that battery up Lyle's ass.
Dirty Ert
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