I am one of those people who have a tendency to say
yes to someone asking for my help before I actually take into consideration
what it is I am agreeing to. This is especially true when one such person who
is part of the select few that I consider valuable human beings* asks me to
help out. I found myself in such a situation today. A friend of mine, let’s
call him Rennis, had asked a while ago if I would help him put in a dock for
the summer. Well of course I said yes (it was in February, it seemed like such
a long way away). What else would I say? I mean a free chance to go swimming, a
day spent with friends, and a slim chance that I may get to steal a few minutes
on high speed Internet was enough for me (See “Let’s Talk About Dial-up). What
I had not taken into consideration was that in order for the dock to be useful
for the season it needed to be in when it was still what we Michiganders would
call “chilly.” For those of you that don’t speak Michiganian, “chilly” is
somewhere around 62 to 70 degrees. Well, that doesn’t seem so bad does it? Drop
it by 5 to 7 degrees (because you are near the water and it is always colder
near the water) and then add in about 15 mile an hour winds; this would be
windy enough to make you hold tightly to you kite string and tuck a scarf
around your ears, but not so blustery as to have to call for your Aunty Em. So
you can see that “chilly” in Michigan is “let’s trim the Christmas tree” in
California. Today was certainly a chilly day. 
We should have been clued in when we looked out
the window this morning and decided to wait for the clouds to “burn off” (this
is Michiganian for “wait for the clouds to dissipate on their own”**). If it is
overcast to begin with, that means that the water has missed a good portion of
the morning sun and will be even colder than it could have been. We did not
heed Mother Nature’s warning. Have I mentioned that there is no one in Michigan
in the month of May that you would like to see in a bathing suit? I will
mention it right now: There is no one in Michigan in the month of May that you
would want to see in a bathing suit. I know that you are thinking, “I would
like to see whats-her (or his)-face in a bathing suit at any time of year.” Not
true. Let me illuminate this for you. When it is cold women and men alike hid
indoors. There is very little sunlight indoors, and anyone that has spent any
amount of time in a cast can tell you that there is a certain sickly paleness
that occurs after prolonged lack of sunlight. Add to that the fact that cold
people like to be privy to as much warmth as possible so long clothing is worn,
and when no one is going to see a woman’s legs what does she do (more often
than not)? She will have a tendency to stop shaving them. Likewise, cold people
like to go into the same type of hibernation mode that a bear would. We sleep
more, we eat more. We appear from our dens after a long winter a less muscly,
more lethargic, uncomfortably pale, and the women are generally a little nicked
and band-aided (primarily from the waist down) than when the winter months had arrived.
I was one such person. I wedged my added winter
poundage into last year’s bathing suit and proceeded to the water. Upon seeing
the all too blue yes-it-is-fucking-cold water come upon the horizon I began all
too quickly to regret my eagerness to help in the dock putting in endeavor. But
I am a person of my word so onward I trucked tugging on my swim trunks for
added coverage with a racing stripe of missed hair down the back of my leg.
Like every wimp you have ever seen in cold water I tip-toed and squeaked my way
into the water. Only unlike most I finally decided to bite the bullet and
plunge into the water. The initial shock
of cold nearly sent my lungs out my ass, but I swam on until I hit bottom and
collected myself a nice bra full of sand. I realized momentarily that my days
of toughing it out polar-bearing*** is probably long since gone. Up I popped
from the water only to be greeted by my friends’ looks of awe and one of them
screaming “What are you fucking nuts?”
On a good day, yes I am, but I can honestly say
that I am one of the first people of the season to leave winter behind me in a
sad display of leg kicking and arm flailing. After what felt like 9 months of
winter it was good to feel like summer is on its way… even if it meant freezing
my ass off to do it.
*Don’t panic this is not a diminish-ment of the
human race and all of the people that are in it. I know that all life is
valuable, everyone has a calling or reason, blah, blah blah. But seriously
think about it. You aren’t the fan of everyone either. Also, if you are
offended by my offhanded comment and lack of tolerance for a large portion of
the population this may not be the blog that you want to read.
**This is also a widely accepted political policy
for dealing with global warming.
***Polar bearing is a strange Michigan custom that
consists of cutting a hole in the ice and quickly plunging into and back out of
it. Yes, this is a real thing. No we are not wrapped tight up here it is cold
for too many months in a row. I am pretty sure that if this were an Olympic
even it would be dominated by Michigan polar bears because no one else would be
dumb enough to try it.
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