Row, Row, Row Your Boat

To be truthful, my enthusiasm improved with hers. I even did the hand gestures with Muffin when we sang Grace in rounds at lunch.

And where I had been secretly jonesing for a latte and a swing on a hammock far from the madding crowd of over-excited campers, I was actually considering getting in a Funyak for a whirl around Lake Run Amok.

We grabbed all of our water gear from the cabin and proceeded to the lake. It was a beautiful day and we all sat on our beach towels (Sit-upons, in the vernacular) soaking in the sun waiting for our water sports leaders to join us. I was just feeling warm and toasty when I spotted Jerry Mulligan from work. He's a department manager I work with at home, and here he is walking toward us! He's a great guy. One of my favorites. What's he doing here?

Oops.

Not Jerry.

Gretchen. Water sport aficionado. I mistook her graying pompadour, enormous square shoulders and Fred Flintstone mannerisms for his. Gretchen would be teaching us to paddle properly.

I will not be mentioning this to Jerry.

We all stand patiently as we are guided through the merits of wearing a PFD. ( A PFD for those not in the know, is a Personal Floatation Device - the PC way of saying life jacket.) Some jackass with a law degree probably suggested that all of our boat-owning friends would be victim to all manner of litigation for calling them "life jackets" and suggesting that they guaranteed one's life. Same guy responsible for our Styrofoam cups suggesting in print that "Contents may be hot" (I should hope so, I just spend $4 on a cup of coffee) and our shoe boxes all containing little burlap packets of God-Only-Knows-What that read "Do not eat." (As if.)

We are then taught the appropriate rowing posture and how to cleverly avoid touching the paddle to the grass (sacrilege!) when we are standing lakeside (And BTW why ARE we still standing lakeside?) by balancing it on the decorative end of our Teva rubber sandals.

And then we are finally, one by one, pushed from the beach in our Funyaks where we all commence racing toward the little island we were just told not to approach so as to not disturb the turtles who are sunning there.

I feel a Haiku assignment for 12 coming on.

But for now I'll race my daughter across the lake - play a sanctioned game of bumper boats - and splash anyone and everyone who dare tried to edge me out in a race to the dock.

By the time we change for our hike we are all wringing wet and laughing our heads off. It's the stuff camp memories are made of.