A Tale of Innertubes for the Intertubes
August 12th, 2008The other weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of partaking in one our country’s oldest and finest traditions: floating lazily down a river with a cooler full of beer and snacks. Also known as “river tubing,” the point of this activity — if you’ve never done it — is simply as the name suggests: going down a river on an innertube. There’s nothing much to do but sip a beer and watch the world go by — and it’s glorious! Truly, one wonders exactly how one lived before participating in such a stupendous and life-altering (not to mention patriotic!) activity as this; it truly should be on every self-respecting American’s “to-do-before-I-die” list.
Fun Fact: The Mayflower “ship” which ferried our forefathers here so many years ago was actually a caravan of interconnected tubes (not to be confused with an internet, which is defined as a “series of tubes“) that traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to arrive - days later, on July 4th, 1812 - in Seattle, WA. It carried “Pilgrims” which, in Algonquin, means “Nascar fans with love of beer and SlimJims.” So you see - I do mean it quite literally when I say river tubing is one of this country’s oldest and finest traditions! (Note to all last-minute-essay-on-the-Mayflower-writing, fact-needing students who are coming to this page from a Google search: feel free to quote me! It’s all true! After all, its on the internet!)
“Pilgrims” on the “Mayflower”
Suffice it to say, I felt pretty patriotic on that river *sniff*. Such… such history.
So now that you know a bit of background, let me tell you about the trip itself.
The day started beautifully. After a quick trip to Meijers to pick up the essentials — ice, cheese crackers, ingredients for sandwiches, a random loaf of Focaccia bread (gotta keep that river classy!), a big ol’ bottle of pre-mixed Mudslide (again with the classy) and beer — my four friends and I set out for grand old Newago, MI, where the trip would begin. The 5 of us decide to all take one car, gas prices being as they are, which turned out to be a beautiful VW Jetta, courtesy of my esteemed gf, Beckae.
Not quite, but close. The right color, at least.
After one missed turn and a short stop to ask for directions, we arrive at a small campground where dozens of other river-goers are waiting for their buses which would be ferrying them to the river entrance-point. Shuffling through the crowd and feeling a bit out of place, we eventually get signed up and enter our place in line. Time to wait.
Eventually, our “bus” comes — which, in our case, turned out to be a very old and dilapidated Ford pickup truck. It had an extended cab so we could all fit, but that was about all that it had going for it. Complete with removable glove box door, which we found out the accidental-way, the thing was a real piece. If trucks were horses, this would have been the one who’s belly dragged in the mud when it walked, and was about to be “taken behind the shed.” Maybe the police officer who pulled us over less than a mile down the road felt the same way, because somehow our truck — and more importantly the seatbeltless-guy driving it — caught his attention. Not the best start to a trip. Luckily for all, however, the cop let our driver off with a warning — but only after a few minutes of that classic waiting game that cops love to put you through while they “check their computers” back in their car (finish their crossword).
Again - not quite, but close.
We eventually get to the river starting point, where a mass of river-goers are already assembled and in various stages of entrance (applying sunscreen, briefing young children on how to not die, etc.). Before getting in ourselves, we are politely but firmly pulled to the side by a lady — apparently an employee of the operation — who inspects the contents of our cooler. “No glass,” she says, pointing to the nice green 6-pack of bottled beer we’d just bought an hour before. Fine imported beer that it was, we decide to drink it right then and there, rather than just toss it or give it away. 30 seconds later — once we’d each finished (JK!! … 50 seconds later) we leave our glass bottles with Mrs. Inspecty Lady and begin preparing ourselves to get in: applying gobs of sunscreen, fastening our cooler to its own tube, making sure our swimsuits are on the right way, etc.
One thing I did not remember to do, however, is take the aforementioned beautiful Jetta’s ignition key — the one and only key of its type in the entire world — out of my shorts pocket and put it into the safe and protective confines of the cooler where it had been intended to go.
Fast-forward to 20 minutes into the trip. We’re floating lazily along, enjoying the sun and sweet, sweet Miller Lite when I notice my swim shorts’ pocket is out-turned. I say “pocket,” here - singular - because yeah, there’s only one of them. One pocket. Out-turned. Its entire contents — of which there are now none — on display. I choke a bit as the realization of what’s happened dawns on me. Before completely giving in to Freakout! mode, I go through the mental checklist as calmly as possible, hoping in vain for some saving revelation in the end: “Took the key out of car ignition when we got out - check; put key in swimming shorts’ pocket, safely Velcroing said pocket, all-the-while thinking to self, “Don’t lose this, dummy!” - check; randomly feeling key in shorts pocket entire crappy-ford-truck-ride down here, just to make sure it doesn’t shake out - check; putting key safely and securely in cooler as we’d discussed… … putting key safely and securely in cooler as we discussed!… CRAP!
“Um… guys…” I say, timidly enough that no one seems to notice at first. “Guys!” I say, louder, and with enough urgency to let them know to pay attention. “I think I lost the key!” With a surprising level of calm (except for Becky, maybe, but then - she knows how stupid I am so I don’t blame her), the group mentally tries to walk me through — once more — the steps I took with the key. I stop them short, assuring them that, no, I remember very specifically NOT putting the key in the cooler. And there’s only so many times you can search an out-turned pocket before finally having to accept that, yes, what was in there is really gone. There are no pockets-within-a-pocket last-minute rescues here, only the realization that you’re royally screwed. Or at least, that’s how I felt at the time.
Did I mention that that key was the only one of its kind on the planet? Yeah? Well let me mention it again, because it was. The only one, as in, no spare. For reasons unknown to me or any other reason-minded human on Earth, Volkswagen has decided — in their swanky brilliance — to utilize a key technology for their cars that’s far and away more advanced than it needs to be. Say goodbye to your standard metal key that can be duplicated in 3 minutes; the particular kind of key that starts Becky’s Jetta — a “smart-key,” I guess it’s called — has some kind of chip inside that tells the engine, “Yes, I’m the key to you and you may start now.” This super-neato little conversation that occurs — while fun and a bit touching — also necessitates these Smart-keys costing a lot more than normal keys — somewhere in the vicinity of $200 dollars more. And I, apparently, had just lost one of these little treasures to the bottom of the Muskegon river.
As you might imagine, this was a bummer. After a few minutes of me trying to convince the rest of the group that I could “swim down there to look for it and maybe not come back up again”, they persuaded me that that wasn’t a necessary penance. Ultimately, we decided that - hey - there’s nothing we can do about it now and we might as well make the most of our trip. Of which we had the whole thing left. And so we did - we made the most of it. And with the help of a few more beers, even forgot a little bit about the fact that we had no ride home. Forgot about the fact that all our things (wallets, phones, clothes, food) were locked in the car to which we had no key. Forgot about the fact that, with no phones and wallets and no money, it was going to be very difficult to get home tonight.
And I’d love to keep telling this story, because there’s some really good stuff that happened after this - but honestly, I’ve gone on for long enough at this point and I’m a bit sick of writing. So I’ll wrap it up by saying that we finished the river, got back to the starting campground, found a very nice stranger who let us use his cell phone, managed to acquire the number of a towing service as well as a friend who would go through a maze of directions to acquire a spare key to the car that would unlock its doors (but not start its engine - thanks again, VW) and drive it out to us so we could get our things. Over the course of a few hours, everything worked out, and eventually, very late at night, we finally arrived home — some of us in a tow truck, the others in our very kind friend’s car.
If I had to make a moral to this story (and I do, because with a story this long, there HAS to be a moral) it is: when going river tubing, always, ALWAYS attach your car key TO YOUR SKIN ITSELF, so as not to lose it, for this is the only way to be sure. The end. Ok, actually that’s not it. The real moral, for me, is to not give up on new things. I’m not sure about you, but too often in cases like this, my first reaction is just to shut off — to say, “Ok, I’ll pay for what I did, but then never again.” Never again will I be responsible in the group setting, never again will I be the one to hold the key, heck, maybe I won’t even go on any stupid tubing trips ever again — just to make absolutely SURE that this never happens again. But I need to not do that; I’d miss out on too many great things. Because the truth is, this screw up of losing the key made the trip that much more memorable, and in a weird way, more fun. It probably brought the 5 of us closer than we otherwise would have been, and it definitely gave us something to talk about for years to come. And - perhaps more importantly than anything else — it gave me a reason to write on this STUPID BLOG AGAIN FOR THE LAST 4 FREAKING HOURS AND REMEMBER WHY I DON’T BLOG ANYMORE BECAUSE IT TAKES UP MY WHOLE STUPID NIGHT!!!11!
The end.
