Worst Date Ever
We had already tipped the canoe twice, and I was getting a little perturbed by the whole situation. I didn’t complain much about it, however, knowing that my two companions were enjoying themselves and that my complaining would only give them the pleasure of knowing they had brought out the wimpy girl in me. I looked at my boyfriend for a moment. His hair was matted with twigs and leaves from our two earlier spills and was dripping down onto his shoulders as he rowed and steered. Behind me, his best friend rowed also, trying to make up for our pilot’s continuous errors. I jus sat in the middle of them like Pocahontas between the explorers (except that Pocahontas was most certainly not as aqua phobic as I was). I didn’t dare to move or talk or breathe, and just sat there hoping the river voyage would come to an end soon. I wanted to tell them to let me out and I would walk the riverbank back to our removal point, but I knew Casey wouldn’t have any of that. He was a daredevil, and he always managed to get me to do things I never would have dared otherwise. I had been terrified of water since I was a little girl. My instincts told me not to go on that river trip that day – as did the local news, which warned of high rivers from the tumultuous Ohio summer rains. But, I chose to listen to him instead. I never could resist his pleading and those puppy dog faces.
It was a little twig that brought us to our final doom. We had been going slowly every since our second spill, trying harder to steer and adjust the weight of the miniscule old rickety rental vessel. The river was not deep for the most part, but there were places where the water sunk fifteen feet or so below us. I remember whispering prayers in my head and hoping we’d make it over the deep spots without falling in. Understandable, I guess, since we weren’t carrying life jackets and I couldn’t swim to save my life. I was the first to see the twig jutting out of the river. My paranoia had kept me more alert than the other two. I pointed it out, and they laughed at my anxiety, swearing that our canoe could go over that “little thing” with ease. The closer we got to it, the less assurance they had for me. I could see it in their eyes. We hit the twig with the nose of the canoe, and it was then that we all realized it wasn’t a twig at all – but more like a small log or a whole small tree protruding from the bottom of the river. Casey told me to hold on and sit still (as if I already wasn’t holding on with a death grip and sitting so still I was afraid to breathe). I told him to shut up. And, the next thing I knew, we were in the mucky water.
The rapids here were stronger than any other point in the river. The heavy rains we had endured for the several days before had caused the river to swell, and it rushed along angrily in this particular spot. I was trying hard to calm myself down and keep my head above water, but it was a useless struggle. Between blurry splashes, I glanced upwards just long enough to see Casey and Evan several feet away from me floating down the river rather helplessly themselves, in spite of their self-proclaimed macho-man expertise at these outdoor escapades. They were great swimmers, but even they couldn’t swim against the tide of Mad River. Up ahead of them, I saw the canoe and the oars, floating upside-down further and further ahead of us.
Soon, I felt something tugging at my foot, and I realized why Casey and Evan were getting so far ahead of me. I was caught! The driftwood and debris on the riverbank had snagged my ankles and legs. The rapids kept pulling me under. I tried to grab hold of the driftwood, but the way I was twisted and snagged underneath prevented me from being able to get a decent enough grip to pull myself out. I kept bobbing under and back up again like a buoy bouncing in the ocean. I thought I was going to die – all for the sake of a little Saturday afternoon fun. As I watched my companions floating further and further away, I felt more alone than ever, and I lost all ability to think and reason. So, I just started screaming. I don’t even remember what I was screaming exactly between the gurgling of the mucky river water getting into my mouth and the strength of the river pulling me under. I seemed to be calling for help with no one to hear me.
A few minutes later, my two procrastinating heroes had managed to make their way to the riverbank and walked back to where I was to pull me out. I was still screaming. Evan attempted to jump into the water to help me unloose myself, but he jumped too far and landed with a splash just beyond me, and once again Mad River carried him away. Casey was now my only hope. He kept telling me to calm down and stop screaming (which wasn’t very effective, really). Then, he reached his hand down and pulled me up out of the dark, muddy doom. I was dripping wet and covered with all sorts of debris and mud and feeling more miserable than ever. We walked down the riverbank and met up with Evan. The three of us then kept walking, and just a few feet later, just around a bend in the river, we saw the removal point. The people there had managed to stop our rental canoe and pull it out and rescued the oars as well, and they all looked at us in astonishment as if no one had ever tipped a canoe before.
For a while, none of us said much on the way home. Maybe it was the embarrassment or the disappointment of an adventure gone bad. Or, maybe our simple little canoe trip in Mad River had taught us a lesson or two. Whatever it was, the silence didn’t really last long. Casey turned to me, with goop still dripping out of his blonde hair and his shorts full of pebbles and weeds and his shoes ruined from mud and sand, and said, “So, you wanna go bungee jumping next week?”
