...A Three Hour Tour, and my mitts.

Wow, I don't know if this is the right place to start when talking about this weekend, but I have to give this portion of the weekend the proper attention before moving on to other things. Sunday, around 2pm EST I finally got up the nerve to ask BBB to take out one of his jetskis. That thing was a damn rocket ship on water. Much faster than the ones I used to take out on the sound/ocean with my dad when I was a kid. Those must have had a serious governer on them... or BBB just has nice toys. Only problem was that on our side of the island the water was so choppy that I couldn't get the machine over 30mph without getting beat up, dunking the jetski or getting a wall of water in my face that would damn near knock me off the seat. I decided I'd stay where I could see his house, but I'd been out for almost a half hour and never been able to lay the hammer down, so I thought to myself, "how hard could it be to get around the island, rip at full throttle for a little while, and ride back?" Well, I did just that. I went out around the island, it was nice and smooth, I got the thing up as fast as I could get it. I think I topped out at around 60, but I was having too much fun to look down. Now the tank was half full when I went out, and it was displayed in bars, so I decided when I went from 3 to 2 bars I was going to come back. That wasn't long when I running full open, so I turned around and started following the shore back... in the wrong fucking direction. I ended up lost. At this point the lake smoothed out and I was able to just rip in any direction I wanted, so I was flying around trying to find some of the landmarks I took mental pictures of to get me back... then again, all I did was go one way and turn around... I must be going the right way.

Well... long story short, I was at 1 bar (and the thing shows more gas than you really have when you have the nose higher than the rear) so I stopped for directions. It went like this, "Do you know where Johnson's Landing is from here?" "Uh... what county is that in?" "COUNTY??? UH........ well, I'm almost out of gas, where can I stop around here?" "Stop down the shore at Pier 19. They have a grocery store and they should know this area better than we do, we just spend our weekends here." "Thank you very much" and I'm off. I stop at pier 19... the little buz I put on before going out had gone away, and I had spent an hour or two with a solid wall of water splashing in my face and the sun beating down on me, so I was a little disoriented. I have never tied a boat to a dock, so I did my best with the one cord I found under the seat and went inside. There were 2 girls working the counter whos combined age was around 26 and they had no idea what I was talking about so I just asked to use the phone. For anyone who has been using a cell phone since the mid 90s, you know how many numbers you have memorized... ZERO! Luckily I could remember my mom and dad's number, so I tried to call them collect. I wasn't thinking and it wasn't until after my mom picked up that I realized that people call collect from jail, and she knew where I was and what I was up to... straight psychopath drinking mania. She picks up and it says, "you have a collect call from... NJX70..." to which my mom exclaims, "OH NO! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON" Now, the automated machine picked up on the "no" and said, "you will not be charged for this call" over her panicked "oh my dear jesus, I'll accept the charges! are you ok NJX70?" click. I looked over at the jail bait working the counter and realized neither of them would care if I racked up some charges on their phone so I just dialed her back. After 5 minutes of explaining that I was sober (kind of) safe (kind of) and everything was fine (uh...) she relaxed and gave me Drufus's number. Why Drufus? Because her phone that she uses was mine and I knew Drufus's number would be in the phonebook. I call drufus, but he had allready left BBB's house, so he just laughed in my face as I tried to get BBB's number. He didn't have it, so he gave me Hot Carl's number. Hot Carl got about 10 calls before I gave up trying to reach him and called back for Bobby Orr's number. He got it on the first try, I told him where I was, and he hung up on me before I could explain the plan from there. I had a plan. It was for someone to drive BBB out to Pier 19 with my wallet in hand. I'd pay for gas, he'd ride the jetski back and I'd ride back home. At least that way I'd pay for gas. What I didn't know was that Hot Carl was on the phone with the Coast Guard when I was calling him (I'd been lost at sea for about 5 hours at this point) and Bobby gave them my 20 and sent an attack boat looking for me.

At this point I went back out the jetski and sat at the end of the dock waiting for what was going to happen next. I look up and a twin motor attack ship is coming right at me. The 20 year old cop working the controlls looks at me and goes, "You look like you're the guy who ran out of gas on his jetski" "well, I have gas, I'm just lost and don't know if I have enough to get back." "You play football?" OK, he asked me about football... mark another one down. "yes." "well, stay a half a football field behind me and if you run out I'll tow you the rest of the way." So, now I'm ripping behind a police boat and I see BBB come tearing up waving at me. I break out of the dude's wake and start following BBB when the motor cuts out. I start it back up, it warms up a second, and I'm off again. That happens about 10 times and then it finally won't come back on... about a quarter mile from BBB's dock. So now I'm being towed in by a police boat... and if I didn't know that signing onto AIM would mean me having to tell this story over and over I'd get the pictures from my friends of me being towed in. By the time I parked the jetski it was dark... I left at 2pm. I was the worst character ever.

Oh, and on a related note, I feel like someone beat the shit out of me. I forgot how hard those rides are on you in smooth water, let alone the fucking white caps I was riding on. I could barely move last night and I was boozing as hard as I could. Good shit.

I have to say though, riding that jet ski was one highlight of the weekend for me. Nothing beats the feeling of just thrashing through the water on a guided missle. I was laughing for most of the ride, and that says a lot. I was alone, in the sun shine, water splashing in my face, and loving every second of it. At one point I glanced to my left and realized with every crash back down to the surface of the lake I was supplying myself with my own personal rainbow. I was giggly like a school girl and so happy that I can't even explain it. Then I was lost for hours and felt worse and worse as I watched the gas and my street cred go to nothing. I still had an awesome time that night, but it would have been so much better if I rolled back into port with not a story to tell. Good thing I packed some limes for the voyage. I might have got scurvy from my time at sea.

I am going to stop here so I can take a shower, get some sleep, and actually wake up early for work. But I do have to let you know what the line of the weekend was. Unfortunately it happened on Saturday morning and left no room for a better line. Here's how it went:

We rolled into a sandwitch joint and there was a nice looking girl working the counter. Starfish kept looking at her and had flirted with her at the counter before we sat down.

Starfish:(looks over his shoulder for the 100th time at the girl at the counter)

BBB: Hey, Starfish, why don't you ask her what her name is so you can finish that song you've been working on.

I'll save the rest for another night, goodbye