Finally. A day worthy of a blog post.

Sundays always start in good spirits.

I had been invited out on a "couples only" boating excursion by my good friend Byron, and the "couples only" part is in quotes because neither he nor I cared one way or the other if we had dates, we just want to be out on the water.

Jason, a good friend to both Byron and I since high school, has married and had a kid. The family man incarnate. In fact, he and his wife Yvonne are the reason this day was dubbed "Blahblahcouplesonlyblahblahblah."

Jason is quite a stubborn and good-hearted fellow. He (just by my assumption) feels kind of subverted as the man of the family because Yvonne makes all the money. This leads to him wanting to be manly and learn to drive the ski boat while were out there. No harm, Byron and I are both well decorated boating masters, and teaching is something that comes natural to us. (especially when we're together)

I promptly show up to Byron's house at the appointed time of "anywhere around 11 to 1" and Byron and Andrew (the roommate of Byron) are still at church. I make myself comfortable on the front porch with my newly borrowed Dark Elf Trilogy book. Jason and Yvonne show up about 15 minutes later, with Yvonne's friend Lauren. (meant to be Byron's "date") I introduce myself to Yvonne and Lauren, and re-acquaint myself with Jason as I haven't seen him in over 3 years. I then proceed to climb up the back yard tree, deftly jump onto the house roof and sidle over to the window that is never locked on the second story. Letting them in, we prepare the boat for the day. Loading every option I could think of into the boat seemed the right thing to do at the time, since Byron and I like to change things up on the lake. I loaded two wakeboards, two slalom skis (for Byron and I's inevitable doubles session) a lame ski for the two skiers, a knee board, and my newly acquired trick skis, which I've never tried as was very anxious to see what I could do with them.

With the food and drinks on the boat, all that was left was to wait for the two people who actually live at the house to show.

Byron arrived with his brother's truck and we hook on the trailer. Andrew is going to wait for his date and will call us to come pick him up at the dock. We're on the road to the put-in when I call Sheri, my date to the lake that day. She'll be off of work around 3-4, so she'll call me when she's ready.

As Byron sees me put my phone down he realizes that he's left his own phone and wallet at home. Not really a big deal to him so we continue on.

The boat ramp is PACKED by the time we arrive. More people than I've ever seen at this particular ramp, but thats to be expected, only a week previous did it re-open, and this is Sunday after all.

After a short wait we get the people in the boat and the boat in the water. Byron likes it when I back the trailer in, so thats my role in all of this. Once the boat is in the water I get the pleasurable task of parking about 1/2 mile away and trotting back to the dock in sandals.

A very normal very fun day begins to unfold as I watch the group dynamic, of which I must poll every time I go out on the boat with new people because, well, I like watching people I guess.

Lauren sticks out in because of one simple oddity. She brought a magazine to the lake. How boring does she think we are? When she pulled it out Byron and I met glances and he smiled as I let my disappointment be known with a hand and the forehead and a sullen shake of the head. She even leafs through it for about an hour as we attempt to teach everyone to two ski. Yvonne goes first and all while we are fitting her in the skis and telling her what to do out in the water, I can see fear building in her eyes. She certainly married the right guy. The truck ride up was mostly filled with Jason asking how bad it hurts when you fall, and what the chances of injury are.

The moment Yvonne gets in the water and holds the ski rope in her hands, she calls out "I don't wanna do this!" Byron and I didn't just invest 30 minutes of lake time teaching her to ski for nothing. We cat-call back the usual encouraging remarks and line her up to ski. Seeing she has no choice, she concedes to try it once. After 3 failed attempts to get up, she calls out that this is her last try (I like to see that 'never give up' attitude.) the fourth try she lets the ski's split (again) and does something remarkable. She holds onto the rope. I let out a long belly laugh and watch as she finally lets go, about 100 feet from where the skis are. I told her to let go if something goes wrong.

She says that she wants to see someone get up on two skis, just to observe how its done, and I take pleasure in giving that show. Since two skiing is kind of boring unless I'm trying something stupid like jumping a tube being pulled by the boat, I put all my weight on the good slalom ski and kick off the learner, tucking my foot in the back boot. I think of how I lost the other learner ski and shrug. I come back in after a few cuts, wanting to give others a try at it first. We managed to find the ski this time, too.

Next up is Jason, more of the same tutelage, more Lauren reading her magazine, which by this time is wet and soggy from us running over our own wake several times. (an intentional move by Byron) Jason, who's foot cant be any larger than my own, has the hardest time in the world getting into the boot of my favorite slalom ski (admittedly difficult, the boot is meant for competition slalom skiing, making getting into it a low priority and control a high, but with a little sunscreen lube I can get into it in about 10 seconds.) We lube the boot up real good and both me and Byron use all of our strength forcing his foot in there. That alone took about 10 minutes. The other ski is just the lame learner ski so Jason slipped right in and we shoved him off the boat. Jason nearly got up the first time he tried, and on his 3rd though 7th try he actually did get up, but ignored us when we told him to keep his arms out straight in front of him. (when you pull in on the rope you loose a lot of your control and often topple over backwards, which he did) Finally he made it up and was going quite well until we crossed the wake of another boat and threw him off.

After his slight victory, Jason moves on to being fascinated with learning to drive the boat, but refuses to actually pay any attention to what Byron and I are telling him (unbeknownst to us). Smooth control of the throttle, always go right of a boat thats heading for you, never get within 100 feet of another watercraft, etc. (the last two quite applicable since its hard to see even a drop of water left in the lake that doesn't have a boat on it. While we are teaching Jason (mostly for selfish reasons, as Byron and I needed a driver for when we both slalom together) Andrew, who couldn't call Byron since his phone was at the house, showed up next to us on a random person's boat with his date, Brenda. They thank their taxi drivers and wish them a safe day.

Brenda is a huge ball of flaming energy. Things like "OOOO I LOVE that" and "wow! I really love you girls, you're SO awesome!" came out of her mouth probably every 4 to 7 seconds.

We decide that Andrew should learn to two ski, since thats the flavor of the day, and he's already really good at knee boarding, so this should be a cake walk. But then Byron lets Jason take the helm. We run through the rule list of do's and dont's and what to do when a skier is behind you, oblivious to the fact that Jason doesn't hear a word through his nods and "uh huhs" Andrew, somehow, to his credit gets up on his first try even though Jason really didn't hammer the throttle down like we told him to, and when we told him that 40 is really too fast for a skier, he immediately slowed to 15. Poor Andrew, who somehow manages to keep balance decides to go outside of the wake. Meanwhile Byron and I are both in Jason's ear about smooth throttle control. I notice that Jason seems to want to aim directly for a large peninsula, and right in his path is the branches of a tree sticking out of the water. Incredulous I tell Jason to steer left and avoid it. Not listening, he keeps right on trucking. Flustered at this time I grab at the wheel and yell at him to turn left, the tree approaching. A small side note, not only was the water too shallow where he was aiming, but thinking of the number one priority, the skier's safety, a tree would really hurt to fall on. Byron notices our impending doom and joins the chorus of me screaming at Jason to turn. Jason finally gets the message and hits left. Hard. This slows the boat enough to sink Andrew finally. We clear the peninsula, thank the Lord. Byron and I, with full loads in our shorts, fill them even more when Jason puts the skier on the wrong side of the boat. Something that should be fresh in Jason's mind is "Always put the skier on the driver side of the boat, so you can see them better, and keep from running them over." No one said this was a perfect world. Jason manages to not kill Andrew and he turns in the skis for his knee board. Byron takes the helm back aggressively. Andrew has some fun showing off his knee boarding skills and takes a decently nasty fall after attempting a jump. With that, he turns in.

By this time I am getting quite hungry, and I remember to check my phone. A few perturbed messages from Sheri waiting around for us in Lewisville (since she doesn't know where the dock is) prompt me to call her. I give her directions to the bridge that we've been skiing next to all day and tell her to "jump off the bridge" Something Lacey and I did when we met up with Byron on the lake last time we were out. We eat a little, go under the bridge and tie off in the middle. Byron and I clamber up the tower on the boat and climb onto the bridge, ready to jump. Unfortunately we cant see where Sheri should be walking by, and she ends up walking the length of the bridge looking for us. A few jumps off the bridge later, we phone her and she walks down the rocky slope on the side of the bridge to hop in from there. I swim her over to the boat and I introduce her to the crowd.

I decide to make an executive decision and have Sheri two ski, since she has once in her life already. After a few failed attempts (she was really close to getting up, too) she decides to come in to allow some other folks to give it a go. Byron and I get our turn on the slaloms.

Stupidly, we give the reigns back to Jason and tell him what to do. The first try, he didn't hammer down the throttle and leave it, like we told him to. (for those who don't know, getting up on a single ski is pretty hard, and even harder without an experienced driver) I veered off to one angle too badly to recover, and Byron got up, so instead of keeping Byron on the line and bringing him to where I am so we can both give it another go, he tows Byron for a while and stops. Ah, well whatever. So he comes over to me and I tell him to let me get the rope and tow me over at idle to Byron. He tows me alright, but not at idle. I end up swallowing a gallon of water and let go before were all the way there. He goes and gets Byron and finally gets what "idle" means and we meet up again. We both get up this time and find that our ropes are too similar in length to cross paths, and instead of going straight, Jason veers around the lake like its Formula One. We get to the other side of the lake and I intentionally let myself fall victim to a wave, so we can tell him to go straight, and to have someone take a rope in enough for us to criss cross (will make you shout, shout). Jason explains that he'll do a U turn when we are both up and head down the coast line. We tell him to just go straight and when he runs out of room, then U turn and go back. Right off the line, I see the boat in a hard turn. I think I should reiterate that a slalom ski is hard to get out of the water, even in good conditions. I open my eyes after about 7 seconds of agonizingly slow dragging through the water to find myself encapsulated in a perfect bubble of water. It was actually pretty cool. In between my shouts for Jason to die I could hear Byron yelling for me to stay with it, funny how we could both be pulled like that and carry on a near-conversation. So finally as Jason straightens the boat out we get some speed and Byron and I exchange surprised glances and start laughing maniacally. We have enough fun criss-crossing each other and give up.

Heres where the day really got better.

We come back to the boat and blow up the tube, now that the ladies would like another go. First out after some deliberation is Jason's wife Yvonne, and guess who wants another crack at driving. Yea. Yvonne gets pulled at a pleasant speed for a while, just what you would expect from a caring husband right? Well he ramped up the speed to near full throttle. As to be expected on such a busy day on the lake, there is another boat, heading right for us. I tell Jason, "remember, in this situation you always ALWAYS go right. Just like on a road with traffic." The boat is far off enough for me to remain calm and explain as Jason begins to turn left, "Right, Jason, right." and grab at the wheel. He fends my arm off. The boat coming ominously closer, and fearing for our tuber, I begin to fret. "Right Jason! Right!" He begins to understand that its english that is his language of choice and makes a slight movement right, but thats only enough to get us back on course to crash into the oncoming boat. "RIGHT JASON!" as I paw uselessly at the wheel. He gets it, he's in trouble. Hard right it is, captain. He veers right hard enough to send his wife flying off the tube. The other boat is at this point confused enough to start slowing. Byron notices that Yvonne has fallen off the tube and is now directly in the path of the oncoming boat and tells Jason to go back for her. Instead of doing the normal, sane thing to do, which in this case would be turn the boat around and go over to our lost tuber, Jason FREAKS out and slams the boat in reverse. This is from a speed of over 35 miles per hour, by no means slow on the water. Well as expected Byron and I start screaming at him to put it in neutral, and as we begin to smell the poor boat frying something and begin to eat the rope that the tube is attached to, our voices get even more shrill. All the while, the oncoming boat has stopped to see this spectacle, and Jason gets up from the driver seat to yell at the oncoming boat (no longer oncoming) to stop. Byron and I cant reach the throttle soon enough as the tube nears the back of the boat. Jason finally hears our girlish yelping and puts in in neutral. Jason now wants to put in forward gear to go get his wife, at which time Byron gets Jason out of the driver's chair and turns off the injured boat. Jason goes to argue "what about her? I have to go see if she's ok!" Byron looks sternly at Jason and says "you've got two legs! GO SWIM!" Jason grabs a life jacket to swim to his perfectly safe wife.

Miraculously, when we go to pull the rope out of the prop, the rope had somehow navigated under the steering fin and over the prop, and no harm came to it. We get in and start the boat up. We get underway only to feel that something is terribly wrong. Any speed on the prop and it just bogs down the motor. Feeling really bad for Byron I make the obvious call, "lets just limp it back to the docks and call it a day." Agreeing a somber Byron sets the boat at a little over idle and makes his way back to the docks.

We all settle in for the long but calm drive back. Andrew, Sheri and I take the front and have a good conversation. Byron's spirits are getting higher and is able to laugh about it. A yacht passes from quite a ways away and we see the waves coming. The unexpected happens.

Water from the first wave comes into the boat, more that I had seen before, but nothing the boat couldn't handle, but the second wave combined with our slow forward momentum drives the nose of the boat down. We were sinking! I tell Byron "give it some speed!" knowing that the buoyancy of the boat will win out, but we need to use the shape of the boat to shed some of this water. He does as instructed and the motor bogs. Crap, didn't think of that. Its funny, I was calm enough to look at Byron's face to see his reaction to all this and it was priceless, a panicked look combined with looking back and forth. He shouts all of the sudden "get out of the boat!" knowing that our weight in the front wasn't helping anything, I jump ship. The rest of the crew follows suit a few seconds later when they realize he was serious. The boat gets very low on the water as we see its momentum carry it away from us. The boat was seriously 6 inches from being completely submerged, aside from the glass and the tower. Byron manages to get over to the cooler and dumps its contents into the lake. He starts paling the water out as fast as he can. I begin to swim to catch up with the boat so I can help. Finally I arrive at the boat and begin scooping water with a Pringles can that I dumped out. Byron after about 15 minutes of paling that huge cooler, with Andrew's help, begins to see progress. The bilge is on, but thats a pretty small pump. About 5 boats stop to watch us desperately trying to get the water out of the boat. I take a shift on the cooler and we pail for about 25 more minutes and finally see (semi) dry carpet. Crisis averted.

Opening the engine hatch, we notice that its still flooded down there, so we cant start the motor with it like that. we decide to let the bilge do the rest and start swimming the boat back. The girls flag down a boat (even after we tell them not to) to tow us. I explain I didn't like the idea of towing the boat because we still have alot of water inside and waves could come back over the bow and do the same thing again. After some deliberation, we decide to go for it and let them tow us back to the dock. As a precaution, I sat everyone on the back of the boat.

Getting the boat on the trailer was easy enough, I skipped the line since we were already taking a slot on the ramp. I make sure that Jason has pulled in the boat enough with the hand crank and get back in the truck. Thats when a fat man on a Kawasaki bike pulls up (obviously drunk) and starts telling us what-for. I ignore him for a while, there is a more pressing need at hand. I pull the boat out and get up to the asphalt and the tires begin to spin. The fat man remarks loudly, enough to get my attention, that "AH TOWYOOTA TUUNDRAA WOULLLNT DOO THAYAT!!!" I begin ignoring him again. He loudly claims as I put the truck back down on the concrete grippy surface that the limited slip would engage on a toyota tundra and we wouldn't have this problem. I begin to seethe. I've had a long day. I get a good run up to the asphalt and the wheels spin again. The boat still has a ton of water in it, making it way heavier than normal. "TOYOTA TUND...." starts the fat one. "SHUT UP!" I yell as I lay some rubber down, knowing that the heat will eventually win out over the slick wet surface. Some white smoke later, we've gotten the boat off the ramp.

Later that night Byron and I were able to joke about the whole thing. We tried starting the boat but there was water in the cylinders. I luckily had my tools with me and pulled the spark plugs out. While we were turning the starter over I did notice a little water come out. Put them back in, and she was running like a champ again.

Upon inspection, Jason had actually bent the prop. That hard reverse from 35 was such a huge shock to the drive train that something had to bend or break.

A microwaved lasagna later and some water, Byron and I knew that we'd never forget this day.

And I never got to try my new trick skis. Blast.