What a Weekend!

Where to begin? Let's start with the trip to the Lake. We got up at the butt-crack of dawn on Saturday morning. The Spouse rolled over as the alarm went off and said, "I don't feel so well." At first, in my bleary confusion, I thought James Earl Jones had somehow come to my bed in the night. Slowly, I opened my eyes, praying that I wouldn't see a naked James Earl Jones beside me. For a moment, it was sketchy, the sleep in my eyes and the darkness of the bedroom caused me to catch my breath.

Once I realized, it was only The Spouse with a nasty sinus infection, I rolled over and said, "Uhhh...that's not good." She croaked something in response. I'm not sure what it was but it gave me pause and made me squint my eyes to make sure JEJ was not in my bed. She crawled out of bed and went into the bathroom without another sound. I took that as my cue to get up and get moving.

I started the coffee and took the dog out. When I came back in, The Spouse was already making the bed and getting ready to start packing. The goal was to be on the road by 8:00a.m. I began rousing The Heathen at that point. The Boy Child leapt out of bed and was ready to go. The Girl Child was less than happy but stumbled into the living room.

Once the coffee finished brewing and I had my obligatory two cups, we made the mad and frenzied dash to pack up and get on the road. The Spouse declined the opportunity to go to an immediate health care and opted for a drug run at the local Wally World.

The 2 and a half hour drive passed pretty quickly. We found the lake house with no trouble and began unloading my SUV. As The Spouse came out of the house to get another load of crapola from the the truck, she raked her foot across a rebar stub that was sticking out of the ground. I'm not exactly clear on what she said but I think it involved some naughty words that would have made JEJ blush. She then turned to me and said, "do you think I'll get the lock jaw?" This is how she speaks sometimes..."the lock jaw." I may have muttered something like, "It would be a blessing if you did." I didn't say it too loud but the look I got reminded me that I have a larger life insurance policy than she does and that one simple "accident" on the lake could make her and those heathen very wealthy. I made up my mind to have witnesses around all weekend.

After the unload was done, we loaded up in my cousin's truck, hitched up the boat, and headed off to the marina. We unloaded the boat without incident. The Cousin asked me to pull his truck and trailer up the ramp and park it for him. I tried. Turns out, his trailer had a sudden love interest in another trailer. As a result, the other trailer had a broken taillight. I won't go into details, but there was a note on the windshield asking my cousin to contact the sherriff's office. (More on that after the issue is settled.)

We headed for their favorite spot on the lake. Boats were lined up, tied off and the fun was underway as we pulled up. Kids were pulled on tubes, dads drank a little beer while floating on noodles. (Note: the inventor of the floating noodle is a genius and should have a huge shrine erected in his/her honor). I was a bit worried about having my man card pulled for straddling a noodle but all of the really manly men were doing it too.

Eventually, another boat pulled up and wanted to tie onto ours. The Cousin attempted to help on the front end but ended up falling between the boats. Flesh was ripped off from his calf up his thigh. Luckily, he'd had a little liquid anesthesia so the pain was not intolerable.

We continued to float and sip from our cups of nectar. More tube rides were given and all was well. Then, a little rain came. Most of the women got out of the water and the men stayed in. I'm no sociologist but I think there's a doctoral thesis in this somewhere. We chided the lady folk and they, rather rudely, called us idiots. We, in turn, asked them to pass out more beer. Again, I'm thinking there's a sociological doctoral thesis in here.

The rain subsided, jet-skis pulled away with kids on tubes and everything went back to normal. For about 15 minutes. A second line of rain came in with some strong winds. Women got out of the water and men stayed in. Until...it began hailing! At that point, the men folk reverted to their primal need to protect the women and we all got out of the water and into the boats. It was NOT because of fear!

Everyone untied and began to make their ways back to the marinas. It was, after all, close to dinner time.

At the boat dock, The Cousin's boat died and wouldn't restart. He walked up, got in his truck, found the aforementioned note from the sheriff, and backed down the ramp. His Boy Child and I maneuvered the boat over to the trailer. At one point, I got out of the water, walked across the wooden deck and down the boat ramp. As I was nearing the water, The Cousin hollered out, "Be careful! It's slicker than owl shit out here!". As the words, "Okay!" came from my mouth, my feet slid out from under me. I landed with my right hand out and down. As I slid down the ramp, I was contemplating whether my wife and children had possibly snuck up on me and pushed.

I got up, helped get the boat on the trailer and we headed back to the house. The throbbing and swelling of my wrist was of little concern to me. I had a bottle of Tanqueray Gin, two limes and several small tonic water bottles.

Sunday morning, I ached a bit and The Spouse thought the wrist might be broken. I scoffed at her, took two ibuprofen, ate some breakfast and asked what we were doing that day.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. We arrived home on Monday mid-day and my arm was much better. The Spouse kept insisting that I get my arm checked out, though. I think she was worried that my earning potential would be affected. So, on Tuesday, I contacted a friend who is a Physical Therapist. He took some measurements, made me squeeze a handle, should his head, muttered to himself and said, "Dude, I think your arm is jacked. You need to get an x-ray and see an orthopedic doctor." This is professional therapist lingo for, "I believe you may have broken your radius and you probably need surgery."

Today, I went to see the doctor. I swear this guy was like 17 and looked like he had just come in from a GQ photo shoot. He walked in and said, "What did you do to your arm???!" The tone of voice was the same one my mother uses when she's pissed at me. I told him a shortened version and he said, "Well, it's broken and nothing in there looks like it ought to." He then began speaking in a foreign language or maybe I checked out for a minute or two.

I've had a surgery on this arm before and have a six inch titanium plate in there. The plate is broken in two and it appears that the bone is broken at the previous incision site. So, I'm in a cast up to my elbow, I can't drive and I think I'm sinking into a depression that only copious amounts of gin and ice cream can fix.

I'll post a picture later. At least I can still use my iPad to post on here and The Spouse and The Heathen can't profit off of me yet!

(Please forgive typos and errors. I tried to correct them but who knows if I got them!)