what I did on my summer vacation...part 1

Well I’m back from vacation and things are back to business as usual. Actual with all things considered I’ve been gone for almost two weeks with doing shit for the MAN up in the DC area and then dropping back in town long enough to repack then head out to Port Aransas, Texas on the Gulf. Fuck, I figure altogether betwixt flying and driving I’ve maybe logged almost four thousand miles during that time period. This vacation was all about “firsts”. First time seeing the ocean, first time riding on a boat and the first time in many years where I actually went somewhere and it wasn’t fucked up due to an act of god. I also learned a few things, one of which is that when one of the chicks you’re with calls you from a bar and tells you that she’s booked a three-hour boat ride on the ocean, don’t let her drinkin ass off the phone until she tells you what kind of boat it is.

On the morning of the boat ride we all headed out to one of the many docks that surrounded the town of Port Aransas for our boat ride. I wasn’t sure what to expect but when I was told that we’d be heading out into the Gulf I automatically assumed that we’d be on a good-sized boat. But as we all know, assuming is the muthafucker of all evils right? So we get to the docks and start walking toward this group of boats, and soon I’m standing next to this boat that looked like the one the old captain had in the movie Jaws. Maybe thirty or forty feet from bow to stern with a big central cabin and this kind of a superstructure thingie where the captain could climb up and steer the boat. I’m looking at it thinking that even though it could be bigger I could deal with it as long as I had a good life jacket and something to hold on too.

But then everybody started gravitating toward this boat parked on the other side of the slip. I heard a noise to my left and it was my female friend who set the whole thing up muttering to herself. “This is not what I expected, this is not what I expected, this is not what I expected, this is not what I expected, this is not what I expected”. Yeah this is not what I expected my ass, cause this boat maybe measured fifteen feet from bow to stern and was maybe five feet wide? The fuckin Minnow was twice the size of this muthafucker and shit. All I could think was that I’m not getting on this tiny muthafucker and that I need to climb my big ass back into the truck and go home. But I was the Man and climbed onboard with everybody else and met Charlie the captain and proud owner of the tiny muthafucker.

We all climbed on along with our cooler, which was packed with food, beer and whisky, and soon we were off. Charlie got us all situated to his liking, which had me up near the bow, Charlie in the center doing the steering and the other four I came with seated in the stern. We headed off to open water and that’s when my many years of government tax dollar paid training kicked in and I noticed a few things.

1. There were no life jackets.
2. There was nothing for me to hold on too.
3. Charlie drove fast as a muthafucker.
4. I thought I was gonna fuckin die.

I was sitting on this big cooler that doubled as a seat and every time we hit a wave the bow of the boat went stright up and then came crashing back down. And all I could do was sit there and freak out thinking that I was gonna get thrown off this tiny muthafucker and die. One of the girls made the bad mistake of coming up front and asking me how I was doing only to get snatched and shoved on the seat next to me, where I held on like a new kid suckin his mommy’s tit. Then the other thing that freaked me out was the anchor that sat in this old milk crate near my feet. Every time the boat hit a wave the anchor would pop up like one of those stupid Punch & Judy puppets, and I just envisioned it popping up and taking me the fuck out. But soon we got to where we were going and everything calmed down. And I’m not done yet.

"and the monkey flipped the switch"