One Labor Day weekend we went on a boating and camping trip along the Wazoo River. It was me, Jorge, and Raul, and to say nothing of the dog or the cat would be animal neglect. Chucho was an old, blind mongrel of mine that was usually barking up the wrong tree, and Frida was Jorge’s scaredy cat. He had to keep her in a gunny sack until we were all onboard to keep her from freaking out about the water.
The watercraft we rented was a river skiff called The Idiom and once we were all in the same boat, floating up the Wazoo, Jorge let the cat out of the bag and it freaked out and jumped overboard. While fishing her out, Jorge’s wristwatch sank to the bottom of the river and after that, he wouldn’t give us the time of day. I tried to lend him my watch but he said he didn’t want to be on borrowed time.
At lunch, we ate on the boat. Schit sandwiches from Schit’s Deli. Jorge was missing his bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Raul blamed the dog but his hands were full of red Cheeto dust and he was caught red handed. Raul was already buzzed from drinking vodka Fantas and he just laughed it off and pointed at a teacup. “Is this your tea?” he asked me and I said, “Not my cup of tea.” And he tossed it in the river.
“That was mine,” said Jorge and again, Raul just laughed it off and sipped his cocktail.
“Don’t rock the boat,” I told Raul but he kept rocking it.
“That’s the last straw!” yelled Jorge, pointing at the straw in Raul’s drink, but I assured him that we had more drinking straws and he said, “Oh, okay.”
We picked a place to camp downriver and I dropped anchor near the riverbank. Jorge was anxious to go for a swim and I said, “Keep your shirt on!”
“Why?”
“So you won’t get sunburned.”
“That’s stupid!” he yelled, “I’ll get a farmer’s tan!” He dove headfirst into very shallow water and smashed his head and shoulders. He probably sustained a mild concussion because he was definitely dopier than usual for the remainder of the trip.
Once we got ashore, we set up camp and it took us almost two hours to pitch our tent. We were relaxing inside when we heard what sounded like an infant choking. It was the cat’s meow.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” said Raul and Frida had a frog in her throat.
“Spit it out!” shouted Jorge and the frog jumped out and started hopping around the campsite. Chucho gave chase but he couldn’t see that well, and it must’ve hurt really bad when he crashed into it because it was a brick well, a wishing well. I tossed a quarter into it for good luck.
Back in the tent, Jorge pulled out what looked like infant clothes. It was the cat’s pajamas. Raul and I laughed hysterically.
“Frida has PJ’s?” I asked.
“It’s time for her nap,” he defended.
“You schedule cat naps?!”
“Get off my back!” said Jorge and I climbed off his back. “Sorry,” I told him. He usually enjoyed giving me piggyback rides but like I said, he was not the same after diving into that riffle.
At some point, Chucho wandered off and I couldn’t find my chanclas so I put on Jorge’s sneakers. I walked a mile in his shoes looking for that damn dog and when I found him he had jumped up at a tree and come down with something: a bad apple, rotten to the core. He ate most of it and suffered from acute diarrhea the rest of the trip.
When we got back, Jorge was snacking on Girl Scout cookies and playing solitaire with only 51 cards.
“Poor Jorge,” said Raul, “he’s not playing with a full deck.”
After losing a few times, Jorge tossed his cookies.
It took us two hours to build a campfire. The flames were perfect but Raul kept adding fuel to the fire and I was getting hot under the collar. “Why did you wear a collared shirt camping?” he asked me and I told him, “Because I’m classy.” And then I took a shit in the woods. I bought biodegradable bags to pick up our waste and dump them at a disposal point but I forgot to pack them and I lost my shit.
Later, we cooked dinner and when we sat down to eat, we had a lot on our plates: meat and potatoes (a hot potato each, not small potatoes), bread and butter, and frijoles, which for me is forbidden fruit because of my IBS. There was also a block of cheese, but I’m lactose intolerant. I had special medication for dairy and fiber so before I could eat beans and cut the cheese, I told myself, “Take your medicine.” It was a bitter pill to swallow but once I got a taste of my own medicine, I was ready to eat.
Raul took a bite of his meat and bit off more than he could chew and started choking. I thought he was pulling my leg and when I looked down, sure enough, he was on the ground pulling on my leg, choking. Luckily, he coughed up the carne on his own but when he got back on his feet, he knocked over the pot that was full of beans.
“He spilled the beans,” said Jorge, who had been beating around the bush, looking for a place to pee. He sounded aroused when he finally urinated, like he was masturbating, and Raul yelled: “Stop pissing and moaning!”
After dinner, Jorge told me Raul was wasted and when Raul stumbled out of the tent I said, “Speak of the devil,” and Jorge told us devilish tales around the campfire.
Suddenly, it started raining and we took shelter. It was a perfect storm; a flawless blend of thunder, lightning, and rain and when the storm passed, there was flooding, and we realized we had camped too close to the water’s edge because all of our food had washed away.
“What are we gonna eat tomorrow?” asked Raul.
“Maybe Chucho could kill a rabbit or something,” said Jorge.
Chucho chased his tail. “That dog don’t hunt.”
“I got a fishing kit in my bag,” I said, “tomorrow we’ll fish with it, hook, line, and sinker.”
The next morning, we went fishing in broad daylight, except for Raul. He missed the boat. Jorge and I went up the river and there was an arched bridge that went over the river and through the woods.
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” said Jorge and I reminded him that we were in a boat. Once we drifted under it like water under the bridge, a man rode over it on a mountain bike and Jorge pointed and yelled, “It’s just like riding a bicycle!”
“He’s definitely going to need a CT scan after this trip,” I muttered to myself.
We anchored and fished for two hours and caught nothing. We saw a fish out of water for a split second but that was it. We went further upstream and I said “Dam,” pointing to a dam up ahead. We turned and headed back.
Jorge managed to fish out some guppies with his bare hands while we anchored, but Raul had bigger fish to fry. Turns out he had walked to a market nearby and purchased a box of jumbo fish sticks for supper and some eggs for breakfast. It was a gross dinner and the next morning, we tried to have breakfast a la fresca but the mosquitoes ate us alive. We retreated to the tent to finish our breakfast and I apologized for the bad trip. Raul gave me a pat on the back and said, “You have egg on your face.”
Before we left, I took my quarter back.