A Soggy Regatta

I was treated to one of the most entertaining sporting events barely known to mankind on Monday. A sixty-five and older men’s soccer league match, you ask? No, even better than that. I attended a high school physics class cardboard boat race.

I know what you’re thinking. "Oh, how fun. The kids got to make model boats and float them in a tub of water."

No. The kids had to make full-size boats out of wood with cardboard hulls, put either two or three high school students in each boat and race them across the Olympic-size swimming pool.

It was epic.

The design criteria was simple. The outer hull shall be cardboard. No direction was given past that. So, as you may imagine, there were a variety of different size and shaped vessels come regatta day. (It should be noted that prior to launching, each boat was wrapped in plastic so the cardboard didn’t just melt away in the water.)

One team built a legitimately reusable wooden canoe. On the opposite end of that spectrum, one team appeared to have simply gathered four intact medium-size moving boxes together in a rectangle and duct taped them together. When it was time to race, each of the three rowers just sat in a box. It actually worked pretty well.

I was blessed to attend this aquatic catastrophe because Son Number One and his buddy had taken over my garage for a few weeks building what can only be described as an inverted doghouse. It was constructed of fence boards and 2x4’s, and was big enough to fit both of them, or had they flipped it over, three adult Great Danes.

They formed a bow and a stern (those are the official nautical terms for front and back of a huge, inverted doghouse) with PVC pipes, and then, of course, covered the entire thing in cardboard.

They did some physics calculations at some point with regard to expected buoyancy - after they built the whole boat, of course – and decided that they’d better add some outriggers made out of five-gallon water jugs, and also bring some weight plates along to ride with them in the USS Casa de Perro.

It seemed as if, on paper, at least, four hundred pounds of dudes was not going to be enough weight to get their craft low enough in the water to be stable.

They were right.

Race day came and the “boats” went into the pool in heats of three at a time. It became immediately obvious that every team spent whatever time they allotted for the project solely on design and build. Not one team spent a single minute working on paddling technique prior to the race.

A watercraft consisting solely of the lid to an Ikea entertainment center shipping box is going to naturally be hard to steer, but even more so if you had no plan whatsoever before the starting gun.

There were a lot of collisions

Fortunately for the spectators, the high schoolers in the boats were acting like high schoolers, so entertainment was in no short supply. One team had Viking helmets and a bucket, specifically for drenching their enemies.

The ROTC ladies had two rowers and a machine gunner, manning twin Super Soaker water rifles from the bow.

In heat three, when it was time for the doghouse to race, external sabotage was not its downfall. Son Number One and his buddy made it about a third of the way across the pool before the sheer physics of the situation became too much for them to overcome, and the world’s most unstable boat capsized in spectacular fashion.

The Ikea box finally passed the shipwreck, after running into it twice, to win heat three. The semi-finals were filled with high seas drama, as the canoe was completely swamped twice by Viking bucket fire and still came in second.

The Ikea Pirates were finally dragged down to Davy Jones’ locker, and the rectangular moving boxes got taken out by the ROTC boat’s machine gunner, right before they were rammed by a skiff made entirely out of cereal boxes.

It was a ten-foot-long contraption that looked like a cross between a canoe and a coal barge that ended up taking first place in the extended up-and-back final race. It was in the process of sinking when they made it back to the wall.

The good news for Son Number One and all involved was that grading for the project was not based on sea worthiness. If you showed up with a boat of any kind, you got credit.

The races were just for bragging rights. And some quality entertainment.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Regrets Can Be Funny

Do you have regrets?

I don’t mean little day-to-day regrets like that fifth piece of pizza, or that shot of tequila you put on top of all that chardonnay. I mean big life regrets.

I was thinking more about that question recently after I heard an ad on the radio for Pepto Bismol, or some other such stomach/digestive-related medicine. The ad agency was tasked with relating all the maladies that the product was capable of curing in a peppy, up-beat manner.

As with so many other radio ads, they went the jingle singer route.

Whomever the jingle singer was, I found myself wondering about them when they presumably placed a hand on one of their headphones, presumably leaned forward into the microphone with eyes closed, and melodiously crooned, “di-a-rrheaaaa.”

At what point during their day in the recording studio do you think they said to themselves, “Huh. Will you look at what’s happening here? I’m singing about diarrhea. I mean, sure, they’re paying me, but seriously. Diarrhea. When did my singing career take this turn? When did my life go off the rails? I was planning to be on The Voice, for goodness sake.  How did I get here? Was it one big mistake or a series of small, poor decisions?”

Thankfully, I don’t have any big career regrets like that diarrhea singer obviously does, and frankly, I didn’t think I had many if any regrets at all. That is, until I was relaying a story the other day about seeing my old high school water polo coach on an airplane a few years back, and I realized I missed a huge opportunity.

We had been working in Tijuana, Mexico (motto: Sure it smells like a sewer, but we have tacos!). On the way home, we spent an afternoon in the ridiculously long line of cars at the border going back into the United States. Under Mexican law, any stationary tourist is required to be offered a minimum of six crappy things to purchase per minute. We were in the line for two hours, so we saw a lot of merchandise. I finally settled on a small acoustic guitar to bring home to our boys.

So, a few hours later, I was boarding a plane in San Diego, holding a small guitar in my hand. My old water polo coach, whom I hadn’t seen since high school, was seated midway down the plane in an aisle seat.

He did not recognize the grown-up me, but he was being funny and asked if I was going to play a song for the plane.

This is where my regret lies.

I was so excited to see him again after all those years, I just stopped and put out my hand and introduced myself. We had a fun moment of “holy cow, I haven’t seen you in years,” before I had to move on to find my seat. I went back to talk to him once the flight was underway and we had a nice visit.

My regret does not stem from seeing him or getting to speak with him briefly. My regret is pun-based.

You see, my old coach’s name is Rick West. I was telling the story to my dad, who is far funnier than me, and he immediately pointed out where I went horribly wrong.

My brain is far too slow. I blew it, big time. Had I been quicker, the conversation would have been:

Rick West - Are you going to play us a song?

Quicker Me - Sure, I guess, but I didn’t know there would be Rick Wests on this plane.

That missed opportunity for comedy gold will haunt me the rest of my days.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen

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