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Who's keeping score?
Well as I was walking to the parking lot today I noticed the one, true, sure sign of spring...
The pink garbage cans.
Yup, pink garbage cans.
You see the fair city in which I live hosts the one, the only Macon, Georgia’s International Cherry Blossom Festival! Now don't make the mistake and confuse this with the The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. The National CB festival apparently is for pussies, 'cause it's just "National". Our Festival is INTERnational. That means our festival can beat up that festival any day of the week. That's right I said it. Got a problem with that? Huh? Problem? Besides, does the local Krystal in Washington D. C. serve up pink grits to commemorate the event, I think not... Pussies!
Each year around this time 275,000 Yoshino cherry trees bloom pink. An event that brings busload after busload of blue hairs into the area to gaze at God's glory, and which brings us folks who live in the area to say "It's just trees fucking. Get over it."
Well back to the pink garbage cans, our brain trust of local leaders somehow thought that highlighting the garbage of our fair city in "pepto-pink" would enhance be the proverbial "you know what" on top of everyone's already very merry cherry experience.
Forgive me father for I bash.
Another thought occured to me as I noticed the pink garbage cans and the resulting springy-ness in the air. With the weather warming up that means it's boat season.
Now there's only two things Ted Turner and I share... He made a fortune while in Georgia, and he was a captain of a boat.
I'm still in Georgia (sans fortune), and I was a captain of a boat. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I was a captain/owner/operator of a fifteen foot Boston Whaler "Rage" jet boat, with a 115 horsepower OMC engine.
I know, I know, you're thinking to yourself:
A.) can this guy amaze me any more?
B.) Jesus! his manliness is awe inspiring, nay dare I say captivating!?!
C.) should I try and not slip on the testosterone that seems to puddle around his feet?
Well close your ajared mouth, because I'm here to tell you that boat ownership had me crying like a baby on several occasions.
To start with, I'm sure you've heard the old adage before that "a boat is a hole in the water that you throw money in". That's actually doublespeak, church-talk if you will. What they're actually saying here is "oh, you're a boat owner? soup line's over there... dumb fuck."
Oh man did we ever buy into that dream. We were at a boat show in January of '94 when we signed the papers. It was a severely proud moment for Leslie and I when we inked that contract. The dealer was so nice, he even threw in a trailer to sweeten the deal. Gee, what heck of a guy! We had bought a boat. Not just any boat, a Boston Whaler. Not just any Boston Whaler, but a JET boat-- how cool is that? On the ride home after we did the deal we kept laughing and saying to ourselves "we got a Way-luh... A By-stun Way-Luh!" Our doo-doo refused to stink for a month.
We signed for the boat in January. I went to pick the boat up from the dealer a few weeks later in February.
Aaaahhh, there was my boat.
All shiny and glistening and.... snow covered!?!?
I picked up the boat the only day it snowed in 1994.
Now I had to drive the 150+ miles back home, through Atlanta traffic, in ice and snow.
Did I mention the fact that I had never towed anything before? And did I mention that normally I'm an easy going kinda guy, but put me behind the wheel and I become a type-a, cursing, bird-shooting, terrorist of the road. I'm better now, but back then I was like that hockey-masked character in Mad Max 2-- "Maniac" was a badge I wore (wore huh, more like war) with pride.
Anyway, I made it home. Boat, truck and self intact. I did have a nervous twitch in my eye for a good week afterward, but it eventually smoothed out.
Now I have a boat in my garage where my truck used to sit.
I pull the boat out every week and wash the damned thing. I must have washed it six or seven times before I put it in water the first time. I would sit in it and pretend to be on the high seas like a kid. I adored that craft. I cherished the thought of the day that I would eventually make our maiden voyage, the wind in my hair-- the over-spray of the water. I was like a wet-dreaming teenager.
Well when that day came, I was scared. I had never boated. I didn't know what to do. I mentioned earlier that the boat was a jet-boat. A jet-boat is much like a jet-ski, only boatier. Basically, it has a multi-horsepowered Hoover vacuum that sucks in water and blows it out the back with serious force. That force propels the boat forward, the angle of said force steers the boat. Keep the physics of this in mind, you'll understand why in a minute.
Anyway, back to my virgin voyage. We're out on the lake, miles away from the marina, kicking up rooster-tails, jumping wakes, skiing, kneeboarding, laughing and giggling and just wetting our swimsuits 'cause we're having such a grand time. Then the current kneeboarder hits a wake then nosedive splats into the lake. No problem, I just circle around and pick him up.
Oops, I just ran over the tow rope.
Oops, the rope just got suck up into the intake of the jet.
Oops, the rope has wound around the shaft of the jet.
Oops, the engine has stalled.
Oops, it was a nylon rope.
Oops, the friction melted the rope to the shaft.
We're in a pretty desolate part of the lake, we waited for an hour or so before somebody came along and when they did I flagged them down and ask them for a tow back to the marina. They obliged.
When we finally got back to the marina and surveyed the damage I realized that the next time the boat would see water was after a visit to the shop.
Boat - 1
Me - 0
Fast forward a few weeks later...
Now its the second time I've had it on water.
I got the boat back from the shop, minus three hundred dollars.
I'm still loving my boat though. Granted I had an initial minor setback, but I'm over it now.
The weather is a bit warmer, now it's prime boating time!
Leslie, RZ and I head for the lake.
When we get there I go through a pre-launch checklist that I'd devised.
Bilge? Check.
Fuel? Check.
Oil? Check.
Exhaust fan? Check.
(I get distracted for a second.)
Life Preservers? Check.
Lunch? Check.
Coppertone? Check.
and so on.
Ready?
I crank it and my baby humms to life.
We leave the dock, starboard side of course (I don't know what it means it just sounds good and nautical.) and I throw the throttle down and we're bookin'. We're tooling around, cutting up, just having a fine time.
Then after about twenty minutes I notice that "she's a bit sluggish".
And she's not humming, she's growling.
And she's really slow now.
I decide to do what all men do when faced with a mechanical quandary... I pop the hood.
As soon as I lift the cover to the engine compartment the problem is staring me right in the face. The engine is almost completely under water. When I had gotten distracted earlier, I missed the part about the "plugs". The plugs are simply stoppers in a drain. You take them out when you're out of the water. You put them in BEFORE you go into the water. Bawnk on the forehead!
We get back to the dock (port side, I guess) and we trudge the multi-ton, waterlogged beast onto the trailer and out of the water, home to dry-dock.
Oh well, Maybe another day.
Boat - 2
Me - 0
I'm not going to recount every bad experience I had with that sexy hunk of fiberglass and chrome, but I shit thee not, every single time (22 times total) I launched I had a disaster. Out of the 22 times I had it in the water I got towed back 9 times.
Oh remember I said to keep the physics in mind? That swell boat dealer-- you know the one who threw in the trailer to sweeten the deal. Well come to find out that trailer was a couple of sizes too small for that boat. Trying to load a boat onto a trailer that is too small and said boat has: no control at low speed (it steered by thrust remember) and no reverse to speak of was a task of epic proportions. A three man job, that I usually had to do by myself. What should have been a 3 minute end of day manuever, was an ordeal that would take me the better part of an hour. Usually with a crowd of onlookers on the docks snickering at me. It was a humilating chore that I dreaded before I would even start the day! The best analogy I can give you regarding putting that boat on that trailer was like trying to slip a condom onto an moose.
Boat - 22
Me - 0
After a couple of years, even though I loved her dearly, I had to get rid of her.
After I sold her, I decided to add insult to injury and do a post-mortem accounting job on what each trip into the water cost. I added up the cost of the boat, the finance charges, taxes, tag, supplies, fuel cost, repair cost, and storage/marine charges, then I divided that total by the number of times I took it out to the lake.
Are you ready for this? Over $1100 per outing.
Yup, over one-thousand, one-hundred dollars. Can I get an amen?!?!
Now, back to the soup kitchen.
Amen.
3/18/2004 12:16:40 AM
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