For some reason it just occurred to me that I’d completely forgotten to share, with all of you (three) on the Internets, the tale of the potentially calamitous, yet ultimately successful, canoe adventure that took place last weekend. Indeed, it seemed as though Murphy himself was presiding over the events of the day, following us with a clipboard and checking off a list full of potential pitfalls.

As I mentioned before, I spent the last odd month or so house-sitting with Andy and Elijah. Initially, when prowling the premises of the house, Andy had discovered a sizeable canoe mounted on the side of his barn. The idea of a canoe trip was bandied about, and pushed aside in favor of other things (such as apartment-shopping, trivia and drinking). Since the end of the house sitting adventure was drawing nigh, we decided to make our last weekend productive.

Things started to go awry almost immediately. We planned on conveying the canoe via Krissy’s trusty Bronco, she being the only one of our friends who owns a large vehicle. The keys were not readily found, and after three or four sweeping searchings (and just before calling off the entire trip), she finally located them and hurried to meet us at the house.

Now, we hadn’t done much in the way of preparation for this trip, other than to hit up Krissy for the use of her truck. So it was that the boys found themselves prying at the canoe, which happened to be locked and bolted to the side of the barn. The professor has a collection of about a hundred odd keys, all of which were tried - and none of which fit the lock that would free our canoe!

Dispirited at the prospect of having gotten up early for no reason, most of us considered the trip canceled. Except for Andy, who, once an idea gets lodged in that determined head of his, will NOT give up. He began calling outdoor equipment rental places and getting price quotes. Another stipulation we had to work with - Krissy needed to get back into town to work at three, and time was ticking. Never mind that the reason we wanted to canoe in the first place was bolted to the barn door - we would, oh we would canoe that day.

We eventually found a reasonable canoe rental price, packed into Krissy’s Bronco, and headed out. We were in luck - a canoe was indeed available, and it shone brightly like the halo of a silver angel (or, more accurately, like a giant hunk of aluminum scorching for hours in the summer sun). As we were in the process of booking, the rental guy mentioned that we would need to buy a good length rope so that we could tie the canoe to the car. Unfortunately, he did not have any rope; he pointed out a nearby hardware store.

Annoyed at this even further delay, Krissy and I left the guys at the rental store and drove to get some rope. Got the rope and as we pulled out of the hardware store parking lot, noted a guy outside shouting at us: “Hey! You have a flat!”

“What?! I do not..” yelled Krissy, quite indignantly I might add, and then we got out and investigated. Indeed the Bronco had a flat, and boy did it ever - the rims were touching the ground.

So there was swearing involved, I won’t lie - by this point the temperature had scraped the upper 90’s, clawing its way to the 100’s - and Krissy discovered that the jack to the Bronco was nowhere to be found. We were standing around, looking like helpless females, when a Good Samaritan who was doing construction work nearby came over to help us. Relieved, we watched with bated breath as he attempted to use his own car jack on the Bronco - and then, with dismay, as the weight of the Bronco smashed the Good Samaritan’s jack into the pavement. By this point, the guys had walked over from the rental store, and now there were five goofy slack-jawed jerk college-age kids, standing around with our thumbs in our pockets, as this helpful man labored in the burning sun to fix our tire.

At this point in the day, some of us were starting to murmur that the higher powers did not approve of our canoing, and that perhaps we shouldn’t tempt fate any further. We naysayers, however, were no match for the will of Andy. No, not even the potential wrath of God would deter Andy from making this canoe trip happen. We still had just enough time, if we got the tire situation sorted out, to get a good hour and a half on the lake. And by gum, we were gonna do it.

Eventually we were able to borrow a scissorjack from the neighboring auto mechanic (now that I think about it, I wonder if the hardware store and the mechanic were running some sort of racket? Were the hardware people intentionally peppering their parking lot with nails, then referring people across the street to fix their tires? I guess that would be an unkind assumption, as we didn’t end up getting charged for anything). Spare tire affixed, and Good Samaritan reimbursed for his services (which we really had to foist upon him, as he wasn’t going to take anything, ruined jack notwithstanding), we headed back to the rental place, sans nails.

So what if, once we got the canoe strapped on, the front of it may have obscured part of the windshield? So what if we were trying to fit 750 lbs worth of people (plus 50 odd lbs of alcohol) in a canoe designed to carry 600? Sure, the boat sunk a little low in the water, and at one point we did have to use empty bottles to scoop out the excess water from the interior. We still had a grand old time, lolling about in the lake and getting parboiled to gently rosy hues (in my case) and red lobster shades (the unfortunate Krissy and Andy; I sure pity you pale people in the summer!). In the end, I must admit that Andy was right to (force us to) persevere.