The Lake, The River, The...

Today my family and I decided to take a trip to what we, and everyone else, have always called "the river." However, while we were en route to "the river" I thought to myself: why in the hell do we call it "the river" when this body of water that we are headed to is clearly and unmistakably a lake. I think that if someone were to say: "yeah, we're going to the lake this weekend", I would probably think that they were mentally retarded, and I wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what they are thinking about. Anyway, I posed this point to my parents, and they told me they thought that I was being overtly complicated; however, we came to the agreement that the proper term is "the backwaters." Why the plural? I don't know. But it sounds better than just "the backwater", even though there is just one lake. There are not a variety of lakes that make up the illustrious "backwaters", but that's not important. For everyone out there wondering: "the backwaters" is the correct term.

We hauled our two jet skis with us, and drove to the public slough in order to "put in" the jet skis, which is always my least favorite part. Inevitably, there is always a backed-up line of people who are trying to back their boats into the water, and it always feels like your are in the craziest rush against time to untie all of the lines in the attempt of letting your boat out into the water. Well the jet skis are a new purchase and I have never had the pleasure of of driving them--because my dad and brother enjoy them a bit too much--until today. Well, I was backing the boat down into the water, and my dad had counted on my brother, who road separately, to back one of the jet skis off the trailer while he backed the other one off. Like I said this process is a headache, and you also have the infinite joy of doing this while someone else is unloading right beside you and tons of bystanders are also crowded around awaiting their turn. Well, my brother did not show up in time; therefore, I hear my dad yell: "Will, give the wheel to your momma, and come back here and ride this jet ski out of the way." I was thinking: okay, he already has the jet ski in the water, it won't be that hard. Wrong. I press down on the throttle and quickly realize that the damn contraption is in reverse, and I can't figure out how to go forward. In a matter of three to four seconds I have drifted over to the adjacent boat and I hear a woman in a bikini with a fou paux on her the side of my head yell: don't hit my boat. I reach my had out to push off of her boat, and start drifting in the opposite direction--praise God, but not before I gave her the meanest damn look I could muster. Then, I finally heard my dad yell: "push the lever down to go forward". Thanks. Some instruction would have been helpful a few seconds ago. So, I pushed it down and was off towards the open water. Somehow, I managed to receive a crash course on how to drive a water ski while I almost had a crash collision with a backwater bitch, who, let me add, enjoys KFC's eleven original herbs and spices a little too much.

The rest of the day was great: we met up with the Lees, road the boat and jet skis all afternoon, and broke into people's unfinished lake houses to sneak a peak at the profress. During all of this merriment, I didn't notice how badly sunburned I had become. I got toasted--no lie, and not in the sense that I would have like to have been.

When we finally got in the car to leave, my family started talking about the incident with me and the woman, again. Apparently, when my mother went to park the car, she came back down and saw a hefty woman huffing and puffing on her boat because it would not crank. It turns out it was the same woman. All I got to say is that god don't like ugly.