FML

Ok, so I wanted to post about something funny that happened this weekend, but I fear that unless you were there to witness it, it just won't sound funny. It is something I could totally see happening on an episode of Arrested Development, but writing it out probably won't do it justice. Anyway, I'll try.

So, we went to the lake this weekend. Even though my in-laws have a cabin, and we have an old trailer there that we usually sleep in, we decided to take our tent trailer up there instead. I can't remember if I ever said that we bought a 1977 Bon-Air tent trailer, decked out in cool retro orange? Well, we did about a year and a half ago, and we love it. So we decided to take it up there and sleep in it one last weekend. So, we head up to the lake on Saturday and set up in the inlaw's yard, and I gotta say it's cold out. Like the nighttime low was like 3 degrees C, which is like 30 something to you Americans. ANYWAY, that night, it's cold, and we light our furnace for the first time ever.

But then Monday rolls around, and baby, it's fucking HOT outside. Like high 20s, not a cloud in the sky, etc. After sitting on the beach all day, trying to watch 8 kids (my own and my 4 nephews) on the beach (everyone else was busy doing work around the cabin, so I was elected to get the kids out of everyone's hair), I finally give up on my dreams of increasing my tan (I couldn't stay in the sun's direct glare because I was busy watching all of these kids). And then, around 5 or so, everyone is reading to go fishing for a bit before we head home.

So, Rachel and I, along with our 4 kids, and my sister in law and bro in law, and THEIR four kids, and my father in law, all head out on the boat. However, let me backfill a little here.

On Sunday, as we are getting ready to head out to the beach (for a frigid swim, because the weather sucked), my brother in law realized that he didn't pack a bathing suit. He asked if I had a spare, and I said no. However, as I feared having to take my kids AND his kids in the water, I went and asked my father in law "Jerry" if he happened to bring a bathing suit, thinking he probably didn't since he can't swim. WELL. Jerry DID bring his suit, so I asked if I could borrow it, since my brother in law, "Larry", is bigger than I am, and there is no way Larry could fit into Jerry's bathing suit. So, I change and give Larry my bathing suit, and put on Jerry's bathing suit. Jerry's suit is fucking TIGHT, but what can I say - I'm generous. So, I swim in this tight bathing suit, and warn Rachel not to look too closely, because this bitch obviously have a camel toe of epic proportions in this tight-ass suit.

So anyway, on Monday, as we are going to go fishing, Larry asks if he can borrow my bathing suit again. Of course, I say yes, because am I going to wear it after he's worn it for hours the day before? Anyway, I was in Jerry's hideous medium swimsuit all day, so whatever - I can suck it up for a few more hours. Anyway, remember all of this.

Now let me backfill something else. You know when you are young and you totally believe you are completely invincible, and you think , like Katie Perry sings, you'll be young forever? And then, something happens and you think "whoa, this shit is bananas?" Well, I have never been scared of water. Indeed, I never understood how people could drown. Until it almost happened to me.

It was the summer of either 1990, or 1991, I don't fucking remember. But it was the July long weekend, and we were at the lake, and it was windier than frigging Chicago. The lake was white-capping, which was really strange considering we were at a beach that usually was calm, being in a cove and all. ANYWAY, we were all screwing around in the water, me, Rachel, her bro and sister, and her uncle. Baywatch, being all new and hip, was the in thing, and we were all playing Baywatch in the water. Anyway, I swim against the waves and current to touch the buoys, and realize that I am exhausted, and that the water is well over my head, and I just can't do fuck all. So, I yell "HELP! I am drowning!" and everyone laughs like I am shitting out coins like an ATM. So, I think, "this is it - it's over" and dramatically flop on my back as a last resort. Well, the damn waves pick me up and throw me a billion feet forward and suddenly I can touch the bottom and I am all "oh, ha ha" to save face, but I am shaken to the core. No longer will I jump into the middle of the lake with no life jacket.

So then fast forward to the next year, May long weekend. The ice comes off the lake earlier that week, but there is still pieces of ice floating out there, as in "if you go in the water, you will die of hypothermia". Well, for some reason, I am on the old boat with the same people as mentioned above, and for some reason, my sister in law, "Michelle", and I, end up on these floaty things - sort of like air mattresses, but stronger, which are tied to the boat. Well, Rachel's uncle Peter decides, as a joke, to untie our floaties, and we start drifting. Since I now know how easy it is to drown, and knowing I will die in that water, I start to freak out like crazy, so they try to start the boat to get us - and the frigging thing STALLS. For what feels like minutes. Finally, they row to us, and get us, and life goes on. But I scream like a bitch when I am drifting away from them.

So, with all of that info, let's go back to Monday. First, we all sit there, on the newer pontoon boat, and the kids are fishing. I am sitting there listening to my ipod. I was feeling sort of seasick for some reason. I am usually fine on water, but this day I was feeling sort of pukey, so I put on some music to distract myself. So, I find Marshall Crenshaw's "Someday, Someway", because I am going through this early 80s new wavey nostalgic phase, and that song brings back good memories, but leaves me melancholy as well, so I am wrapped up in the song, when Larry nudges me and I take my ear buds out to hear what they are saying to me.

Well, it turns out that the uncomfortable tight bathing suit of Jerry's that I am wearing has ripped - split right in the fucking CROTCH.

So, they are laughing and pointing, and I look down and think FML, but, as someone says, thank God there is a lining in there, so I don't get too concerned, because really, who is going to stare at a slitty lining?

Well, the slit gets bigger, and I realize that this thing is so tight that the boys are literally straining out through the stupid lining. So then, when some of our party decides to jump into the middle of the lake, I decide maybe it will be a good idea. As I said before, I hate deep water now, and freak out in it, but my older two kids wanted to go in, wearing life jackets, and since a few of my nephews where in there, as well as Larry, I threw on a life jacket and went in.

The water was calm, and since I had a life jacket, it was fun. I even thought "gee, I could just swim and float to the other side of the lake." Yes, I got cocky.

So almost everyone got back in the boat. It was just my older two girls, me, and my nephew, left in the water. Everyone starts to get ready to get back in the boat, so when I get to the boat, I decide to be brave and take my life jacket off to see if I could touch the bottom. WELL. As soon as that life jacket leaves my shoulders, I see my nephew climbing the latter back onto the boat, and I watch as the ladder lifts out of its sockets, and somehow rises, and flips over his head into the lake. And it sinks.

So, I start freaking out like the sky is falling. I am trying frantically to get my life jacket back on, and yelling that I'll never get back into the boat, and I make this huge scene. Rachel is all "just try to get in on the front - climb the pontoons" and I am yelling I can't and she yells that I am panicking and I am yelling no fucking shit, Sherlock. So we get the kids lifted into the boat, and Larry ends up standing on a floaty ring thing, and I stand on it, while also climbing onto his shoulders, while Jerry and Rachel each take my hand. I somehow end up slowing climbing up the boat, scraping my back like I've just fucked Elvira missionary style and rocked her world, and slowing make it onto the tiny opening on the boat. It's completely humiliating and inelegant and I end up slapping onto the deck of the boat, in a fetal position, like some 200 plus lb hairy Marlin or tuna or something. They all look at me, in this tight space, in the fetal position, scraped up, with my balls straining against a ripped suit, and laugh.

And then, as I get up and try to act all solid, my nephew keeps yelling "Uncle JT has a leech in his armpit!" and finally his mother says "stop, that's not funny" and then they all go "Ummm.. yes, he does, doesn't he?" So then they all scream and nobody does anything but laugh, but then finally, my father in law flicks it off. Let me tell you, I can still feel where that son of a bitch was. I have a whole new appreciation for that dude in "Stand By Me." So yeah, Monday night? It was an FML moment....

And that's the day it was.

Peace out, peeps.