"Summer Should Get a Speeding Ticket"

          "Summer should get a speeding ticket" was the comment on Facebook that I read, I wish I'd thought of it.  Very clever.  There certainly is some truth in it.  Time has gone by so quickly, this summer, I'm certain it has truly MELTED away from the amount of heat that we've had.  I don't remember ever having such unbearably hot days, and I grew up without air conditioners, or even a fan in my bedroom.  We knew some hot nights, but, man, I don't remember people literally dying from the heat or my tapered candles literally melting and bowing down in subjection to it.  Crazy days.

          I was thinking today of some of the fun summers I've had in the past, because, frankly, this summer was not my best. I took my vacation really early in the season, and the heat, for me, put a damper on all 3 months.  I didn't go to any picnics, didn't see any fireworks, didn't even go out to canoe or kayak, not even ONCE.  But now that the weather is cooler, I hope to start acting like I do more in life than sit at a desk and work.

Lunatic Thrill-seeker

          Once I'm out on the lake, I enjoy canoeing, but especially kayaking, because it's so maneuverable, I suppose, so fast.  Because kayaks are so light, they're much less work, and you can talk to the person your kayaking with because you're side by side, not in front and back.  And if you're in an area where there are speedboats, it's fun to jump their wash.  But I didn't always admire kayaking, let me tell you.  I'd always associated kayaking with those lunatic thrill-seekers on Wide World of Sports riding rapids and spinning around under water in what looked to me like giant pickles.  Not fun, to me, but a death wish.  Anyway, to proceed: 

          It was probably about 10 years ago that my friend, Christine, and I took a trip to Long Beach Island, NJ, and decided to take an "Eco-tour" through wetlands by kayak there.  They were ocean kayaks, where you sit on top, you're not inside, and they were long, flat, and we each had one.  I had a wonderful time paddling around in it, I fell in love with the thing!  Afterward, driving back to our hotel, I told Christine that I'd been a fool to think my canoe was the only way to go -- we NEEDED kayaks.

          "GREAT!!"  She exclaimed, "Because right now, end of season, a lot of places have used ones for a good price!"  With that, we came upon a souvenir shop on the bay side that, besides the usual junk, also had used kayaks for sale. Christine whipped the car into the parking lot..  She went off to look at kayaks to her heart's content while I got to look at T-shirts, etc, all the usual junk you feel you can't live without while you're at the beach, but can never understand why you bought once you get home.  (My apartment used to be FULL of little sand castles, carved men in yellow slickers smoking pipes, a miniature wooden pier with a plastic gull perched on top, etc, like I was somehow nautical, but actually get quite seasick and live hundreds of miles from the ocean.  These things usually end up in our bathrooms, which is puzzling to me, but the subject of another blog:  Why do we think bathrooms have anything to do with the ocean?)

          I'd only been shopping for a short time, when I felt Christine excitedly tap my shoulder.  She'd found a kayak she wanted me to check out.  I obediently followed, thinking we were going to be heading toward the bay.  To my surprise, she led me to a bright yellow single kayak with a "keyhole" sitting arrangement.  In other words, though you wouldn't flip all around upside down in it, you sat INSIDE it, not on top.  More puzzling, it wasn't on water, it was in front of the shop, in the parking lot, about 5 feet from the major 4 lane Long Beach Island road.  "Try this and see what you think!"  Chris said, indicating the bright yellow kayak, that if not a pickle, looked like a banana, anyway. Skeptically, I began to get in the thing, while Christine and the owner, a woman about 65, watched.

          Now, Christine, a trim athlete, teaches fitness and such things at a nearby university.  I am the polar opposite.  I was kinda round, (now I'm decidedly round) and have an Olympic Gold in Sedentary.  As I slid into the Monster Banana, Christine remarked she thought perhaps the hole was a little tight on her, what did I think?  I looked at her in amazement as my humonga-butt settled in.  "WHAT???  It was tight on YOU and you just let ME get in???"

          I couldn't bend my knees because I was in a long, skinny 'banana' and I had really bad arthritic knees. I hadn't had my knee replacements yet, see.  Uh oh.  "Uh, Christine, I can't get out!"  The owner's eyebrows shot up in alarm.  "I'm serious, I can't get out!"  I tried to push on the kayak, but it was plastic, and I was afraid it would buckle.  I couldn't help myself, I started to giggle, which got Christine going.  Soon, she and the owner each had an arm and were pulling.  I began to wonder how it would look when the old lady dropped from the heart attack she was brewing by lifting me AND the kayak 3 inches off the ground, as it was firmly wedged around my posterior.

          Then I noticed we had an audience, 4 lanes of it, plus souvenir shoppers in the parking lot.  Thank goodness I didn't have a bathing suit on, though if I did I might be easier to grease up with Vaseline or KY Jelly...

          FINALLY, I managed to turn on my side, have Christine and the owner hold on to the kayak, and with effort, wiggled like a snake onto the parking lot, where I lay for awhile, breathless with laughing.  (I don't THINK there was a pop, like cork out of a bottle.)  Christine sat next to me, laughing, while the owner examined the kayak.  We waved a good bye to the onlookers and scurried to the car, where I proceeded to sit on the floor, unseen, but giggling, still.  We didn't buy any kayaks on that day, but when I did, I assure you, it was a sit on top.  I've since used kayaks where you've sat inside, but I've mentally measured them up pretty carefully first, knowing that if I'd had so much as a dime in my pocket that day, I'd have been learning how to accessorize a kayak for high fashion!