So this is a funny story that happened at least 10 years ago. Thankfully I was a witness and not a participant.
Honestly, something like this would never happen to me because I would never put a lawn chair in a canoe. And I certainly wouldn’t sit in said lawn chair…
When our kids were younger, Kris and I would meet up at my parents’ house for a visit. If the weather was nice, we’d take the kids for a walk. We could walk one way and visit the horse, Not Ginger.
Or the other direction took us to the bridge at the end of the street. On this particular visit, we headed toward the bridge.
The kids loved to play Poohsticks—throwing sticks into the current and racing to the other side of the bridge to see whose stick came out first.
Like any other trip to the bridge, the kids were running, jumping, and playing while the adults chatted and tried to keep Nick on the bridge and out of the river. Keeping Nick from jumping off was a full-time job.
We heard voices and turned to see a canoe with three young adults making their way up the river. Two young men were paddling, one in the front and the other in the back, while a young woman sat between them…
…in a lawn chair.
Yeah, you read that correctly. She was sitting in a lawn chair. In the middle of the canoe. A lawn chair!
If you know anything about canoes, you already know this wasn’t a good idea.
If you don’t know anything about canoes, trust me—this was a really, REALLY bad idea.
It was springtime, and the river was high from all the rain and melting snow. When the water is high, it can be impossible to get under the bridge.
The solution is to get out of the canoe, carry it across the bridge, and put it back in the water on the other side. One riverbank has a steep incline, while the other has a much gentler slope. Obviously, one side is a whole lot easier to climb, especially when you’re carrying a canoe.
Simple, right?
When they asked how to get under the bridge, we explained the solution. They asked a few questions, and then we moved the kids to where they could watch without being in the way.
Suddenly, the dude in the back of the canoe started paddling, yelled, “COMING IN HOT!” and aimed for the steep side of the bank.
Before we could say a word, the canoe hit the bank and tipped to the side, almost dumping everyone into the river.
The two guys were able to recover quickly and ended up knee-deep in the muddy river.
The princess—I mean, the young lady—fell into the river, dropped her phone, and started wailing. She was drenched, covered in mud, and her cell phone was nowhere to be found.
We just stood there, mouths open, watching the chaos.
If Kris is telling the story, she’ll tell you we successfully maintained our composure until we walked off the bridge, but that is completely not true.
After the shock passed, we tried to laugh discreetly, but it was difficult with the princess making such a fuss. My mum was chastising us as she tried not to laugh.
In the midst of all this, we suddenly heard Nick’s voice.
“Excuse me! Excuse me?”
He was urgently trying to get one of the guys’ attention. With the princess still wailing about her phone and other belongings, I’m sure they were happy to focus on someone else.
They turned to Nick.
“Your sodas are getting away.”
We all looked up the river and saw the cans bobbing in the current.
Sure enough, their sodas…or, ummm…beers…were getting away.
And as we all burst into laughter, my mum tried to shush us and shoo us away.
I was left with several questions after we walked away. Did the princess ever find her phone? Were they able to recover their beers? When the boys carried the canoe across the bridge…was the princess still sitting in the lawn chair?
Sadly, we never got answers to these important questions.
I learned something that day.
Life is a lot like a canoe ride. Most disasters don’t start with one terrible decision. They start with one questionable decision that everyone else just goes along with.
So think about your choices.
Maybe don’t get into a canoe with a princess in a lawn chair.
And if someone yells, “COMING IN HOT!”…
…you should probably just walk, or maybe paddle, away.
If this story made you laugh, I’d love it if you’d share it with someone who appreciates a good dose of harmless chaos.
And if you’d like more stories about family, parenting, travel, and the wonderfully ridiculous moments that somehow become our best memories, hit the like button and then subscribe to Brain Fog & Brilliance. New posts arrive every Wednesday.
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