The Date

I hope I never have to date again. I was never very good at it to begin with, and I am too blunt to play games. All of that makes me think of a date I had at the tender age of 18 that I still remember with great detail.

My friends and I got invited to go on a float trip with a group of guys on the Mulberry River. Let me just explain this river to you. The water is high, the current is fast, and the temperature is slightly above freezing. When we arrived to rent our canoes, my friends told me I needed to ride with Bobby. They all had this odd smirk on their faces.

I would later recognize this face while vacationing in my later life. It is the look the stable manager gives you when he selects the horse you will ride on your leisurely trail ride in the mountains. “Here ya go ma’am. This is Seabisuit.”

Bobby was cute. Bobby seemed nice. Bobby smoked a huge joint the minute we got on the river.

I am not talking about a little blunt, or a small bud, or even a one hitter. This thing was so big it looked like it should have had a taco bell wrapper around it. I had my little ice chest with a few beers and a small bottle of Jim Beam in my dry bag. The seal on the brown bottle was broken about two minutes after Bobby fired up his soft taco. I knew this was going to be a long day.

No sooner do I open the dry bag until we hit our first bump in the road. We literally hit a bump because Bobby was so preoccupied with being higher than a cat’s ass that he forgot to look ahead. We flipped the canoe and all of my belongings were lost, including my dry bag. My Miller Lites and Marlboros were headed to the Gulf of Mexico before I could reach them.

The next four hours consisted of Bobby constantly tipping the canoe. For those of you who do not know, tipping means spilling out everything in the canoe (including your date) into the water because you don’t know how to steer a damn boat. Bobby did not know how to steer a canoe nor did he know how to just ride in the front of a canoe after I made him switch places with me. We still flipped over again and again because Bobby thought he was walking around in his living room instead of a canoe. I barely said a word the entire time we were on the river.

I was sopping wet, worn out, and stone cold sober. When we finally arrived at our pull out place, I drug the canoe out of the water and threw my paddle and life jacket on the ground. I turned to my date and said, “F*^# You Bobby. F*^# You.”

He never called again.


Thank you for reading and I hope you feel a little better about yourself.