If you wanna feel better about your family, just read about ours...

Starring: a dad, a mom, a son & daughter-in-law, a daughter & son-in-law, another daughter & son-in-law, 1 teen, 1 grandson, 3 granddaughters, 4 dogs, and a whole lot of love.






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Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Eye Eye, Officer

 Our local lake puts on a huge fireworks display and we have a boat. Does anything more even need to be said? Situations like this is why my blog exists. A boat full of people, 3 dogs, 2 cops, 5 stitches, and an asshole...this story has it all.

It started out uneventfully. Ron, me, Caymen, Kearstin, Kearstin's boyfriend, my son and his family, and my sister and hers, headed out on our boat for an evening of tubing before the fireworks. About an hour in, our 20 year old daughter, our daughter-in-law, and our nephew were on the tube, and were violently thrown off, which is the goal, as if you didn't know.

My daughter-in-law, Barbara yelled, "Kearstin's bleeding!" This was not alarming, because Kearstin gets frequent nosebleeds, so yeah. She got violently thrown from a tube. Of course she's bleeding. Then we looked over the side and saw her face covered in blood that was gushing from a cut above her eye. Gushing.

Everyone's immediate reaction: Daaaaamn.


We pulled her onto the boat and grabbed the first aid kit, that didn't have any butterfly strips, which begged the question, what the crap kind of first aid kit doesn't include butterfly strips??? Barbara (mentioned in my previous blog, who's in school to be a PTA), jumped into action, gave her a 'follow my finger' field test, and made 3 butterfly strips out of tape, because she's our family's MacGyver.
She's MacBarbara.

Between my back and Kear's eye, she's basically earned her degree.

Accepting the fact that even MacBarbara couldn't make this problem go away, we threw the tube on the back deck and sped toward our dock. As we entered the 'No Wake Zone' Ron slowed the boat down...sort of...because we're rule followers like that. That's where we encountered the Police Boat coming toward us in the opposite direction. Good thing we're...sort of...rule followers. Except they made a turn and came toward our boat.

"Can you please get into the boat?"
I turned to see our son, Zac, squatting on the back deck of our boat, where he'd been riding to hold onto the tube. He stood up. Ron quickly explained that our daughter had been hurt and we were headed in to take her to the ER. They looked over at Kearstin and I knew what they were thinking.
Daaaaamn.

Poker faces, gentlemen. Poker faces.

Soooo, we should probably get goin' now.

"Sir. Can you please get into the boat."
I turned to see Zac still standing on the back of the boat. Dude. Seriously? A cop should only have to say that once.

Then he turned to Ron and said, "We'll follow you in and talk when we get to your dock."
Ok. Cool.
*Everybody glare at Zac.*

It has officially gotten real.

So we began the slow, humiliating, police escorted trip back to our dock.
Nothin' to see here, folks. Mind your business.

We began to discuss the situation. Whyyyyy the dramatic police escort back to our dock...besides a guy squatted on the back and blood all over our boat, if we were forced to name the obvious.

Did we exceed our boat's 12 person maximum capacity with 14 people and 3 dogs? Sort of. I mean, we'll probably have to count the 12 year old and the German Shepherd, but the 2 toddlers don't even add up to one whole person, nor do the 2 little dogs. So total number of boat occupants: 12 1/2 people and 1 1/4 dogs. (They're really little dogs.) Plus, we bought the extra floater seat to allow up to 14 people, so Boom. That means we still have room for another 1/4 of a person on our boat. Plenty of room. But having one person riding on the back deck is pretty misleading. *Everybody glare at Zac again.*

Did we exceed the 1,600 pound weight limit? Probably a safe bet.

Ron: "At least we don't have any alcohol on board."

 Me: Welllll...funny story...one of my water bottles is filled with Calico Jack.
Everybody stop glaring at me.

Would it be weird if I started slowly pouring something over the side of the boat right now? Yeah, okay, not a good look.

Ron: "You're going to have to hurry and drink it."
But I'm a total light weight.
"DRINK IT."

By the time we all arrived to our dock, I'd done as I was told. Speaking of our dock. Parking our boat in it requires us to make a couple of sharp turns. Under the best of circumstances, this takes an average of 4 tries and roughly 23 minutes, with everybody sober, and 2 people on the front and back deck corners to keep us from bumping into other boats and/or the metal frame of the dock. That's on a good day. A not good day, involves a cop standing on our dock watching us...and probably counting heads and mentally adding up our poundage while not hiding his look of disdain, as Ron made several 14 point turns in our overloaded Tritoon with none of us on the deck to help, because illegal. Duh. Where've you been?

Meanwhile, my Calico Jack was taking effect and I couldn't stop thinking of the song...It Wasn't Me, by Shaggy. Circling, circling through my brain...It wasn't me...don't sing...It wasn't me...there's a cop...It wasn't me...don't laugh...It wasn't me...Do.Not.Start.Dancing. I had to put a stop to this before something regretful happened. (As if this entire day hadn't already turned regretful.) So I did what drunk me does best. Witty banter. I don't remember anything I said, but I'm sure it wasn't awkward at all and definitely fixed everything.

We make really bad first impressions. It's like our gift.

So Kearstin, her boyfriend, Trevor, and I got out of the boat to take her to the ER while the rest of them stayed behind and tried to explain our festival of terrible choices.

No way this could get worse.
Hold my Calico Jack.

Ron handed me the van keys.
Dude. A DUI might actually make things worse right now. As would the officer seeing the bloody-headed 20 year old take the drivers seat. Sorry, Trevor. That leaves you to drive the mini-van. A dream come true, I'm sure of it. Thank goodness he didn't lose his contacts when he was on the tube, because Kearstin would've been the only one left to drive, and somebody has to be responsible, and then everybody would've had to glare at Trevor.

As we passed the Urgent Care, we realized they were still open for 5 more minutes and it didn't take long for the Physician's Assistant to throw in 5 stitches and send us on our way. Things were finally going in our favor.

Meanwhile, back at the boat...
The officer was explaining to Ron, who was wearing his 'Don't Hassle Me I'm Local' shirt, that a tubing injury is classified as a 'Boat Accident.' That seems dramatic for an UNdramatic family like ourselves. He was asking Ron a million questions, as the dogs whined to get off the boat. So Barbara asked herself, 'What would Shari do?' and proceeded to let them off the boat. Unleashed. And our German Shepherd went after another family's dog.

Nope. Not what Shari would have done, but I appreciated the thought process.

Of course the officer was quick to point out that it was illegal for the dogs to be unleashed and attacking other dogs, willy nilly. Just add that to our All The Laws We're Breaking Tab, thanks. Ron was told to meet him back at the dock on Monday afternoon to finish explaining himself for the "9 separate violations" and wrapping up the "paperwork." Also texting all of our boat guests and asking for their full names and ages for the police report is every boat owner's dream. What, you don't want their weights? Do you even care about the obvious danger we are to society?

We arrived back at the boat dock at 9:40pm. The cop was gone, and if we hurried, we could make it across the lake for the fireworks. (Violation #10)

And if you're thinking we should've just cut our losses and retreated to our homes for the safety of others, I'd kindly ask you to stop making sense. You're wasting everyone's time.

As we sped through the dark, (Violation #11), weaving around other boats (Violation #12), that were anchored by people who more than likely hadn't just spent the evening getting their kid's eye stitched up and hosting a dog fight for the cops who were already questioning every choice they'd ever made. In short, a little grace would've been appreciated. Instead, what we got were angry boat honks and someone called Ron an asshole. (Where's their violation, huh?)

Ask yourself this. If you've never been called an asshole, are you really living your best life?

We parked, anchored, and totally blended in with everyone...meaning, Zac fired up Ron's drone, (Violation #13), which in the dead of night, looked and sounded like a
ticking time bomb. (Violation #14). Then they brought it back down to change the battery, just as the finale started, because of course we missed the finale with the drone.

I felt like I owed my family an explanation for everything that happened. The eye, the cops, the drunkenness, the dogs, the asshole...the 14 violations...You see, I'm writing again. And God is providing all the material I need, because Jesus loves me more than most.

Then we got back to our dock, our dog peed on somebody's bag, (Violation #15), Ron grabbed the hose in a fit of rage to spray him (Violation #16), and ended up spraying me point blank in the face instead. (Violation #17...the most life threatening violation of them all.)

Back the love down just one notch, there Jesus.




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