Sunday, July 12, 2009

Write of Passage

I'm sitting here, after a cold weekend at the cottage, a crumpled old man. It started with a basic concept that each of my kids had the right to spend a totally drunken wild weekend at the cottage with their friends. Why not live the life of beer commercials once in your life?

I did it at the end of Grade 12. We were all campers and we went to camp the the upper lakes, but of course, we had to have The Night. We all got smashed, and smoke room-grown cannabis, that had the power of toilet paper. One girl went toxic when we went skinny-dipping. All I remember was struggling with this mass of slippery, naked girl, trying to stop her from sinking beneath the waves. :) Actually, it was quite scary because we thought she'd kill herself.

On to modern times: the 20-year-old boys, no girls. I took them up myself, since I wanted the place to remain in one piece, and these guys can't see beyond their nose. The logistics of a cottage binge drink are quite complex. You have to take up all these huge guys, plus food, plus stuff, plus booze, and jam them into a van. Then you have to unload everything, and load a boat, and haul it up to the cottage. They had to provide all their own supplies, but the horrible thing happened, they ran out of booze on the second night!

The weather was cold and generally terrible. In the sunny breaks, they went tube fighting, which is using two flat tow tubes. We go for a few loops on the boat, and they they start the fight, which is like rugby on the waves. They try to knock each other off the tubes, while hitting waves which are throwing them 2 m high! It was hilarious!

Friday night was quiet for me. I drugged myself up to sleep with my anti-depressants, and they went for drinking games. With enough booze, they quietly passed out one by one. A little barf over the rails, but quickly cleaned up by the incessant rain. Saturday, I took the bedraggled bunch over to the fishing hole. By definition, no fishing hole is good, unless it is nearly impossible to get to. Down deep valleys full of bugs, climbing up cliffs, and topping hills. One guy had to take 15 beers with him and ice. Fishing wasn't that good, but we got 2 really nice largemouth bass. Drank only a few beers, and the rest had to be hauled back. The ice was good for the fish.

Second night, the worst thing for me happened. They ran out of booze! They just stopped at the ridiculously noisy stage, and couldn't get to passing out. Then they howled, and went swimming, and screamed, and played music till dawn. I kept getting up, and telling them not to scream, but the effect lasted 5 minutes! I'm going to get glares from the whole north half of the lake!

More water sports the next miserable day, and a ton of recycle bottles at the dump, and we all got home safely. On to the next kid in 2 years!

2 comments:

Harbles said...

You're a good dad.
I would think the young lads would be a little inhibited with a responsible adult around.

Off topic but about your Blackberry for education idea there's this item. I don't think school was on the questioners mind but as you say if they are socializing online that might motivate some learning.

Harold Asmis said...

No inhibitions!