Princess of Irony

Stephanie and I were totally oiled up with a mixture of baby oil and iodine.

Issue Date: Monday, Jan. 10, 2005

July of 1987

Saturday, 9:30 am, Stephanie and I woke up groggy and mush-mouthed. We stayed up most of the night before giggling and talking about boys in our class and our plans for the next week. Kim was going to be coming into town soon and we needed to decide on Six Flags or Wet and Wild for our big excursion.

My mother was prodding us to get up and have some breakfast, �Giiiiiiirrrrrllllls!� She chirped in her high-pitched southern voice, �Get up, get up get uuuuupppppp!!!!� Trilling the last �up� into two sing-songy syllables.

We moved slowly from my tiny bedroom into the kitchen. My mother flitting around us like a small humming bird while Stephanie and I blinked our eyes at the cruel morning sun.

We foraged for food in the kitchen and watched the world with our bleary eyes.

My father came in and asked us if we were ready to go. He got most of the sentence out of his mouth, saw the state of our existence and turned around and went back out into his sanctuary� the garage.

That morning we were going to the lake to water-ski with two boys from my church, Ryan and Carter. Carter�s dad, Gil, had a dual-motor, inboard Viking (with wings) and my father was going with us as our safety net. My dad had taught most of my friends to water-ski so they were comfortable around him and his 1976 Glass Master (hoopty) boat� and Gil had the reputation of being sort of a wild man on the lake.

Stephanie had a small crush on Carter because he was Greek god hot. I pretended not to notice that Carter was hot and Ryan was quite good looking too... because these guys were my buds. I had known them since I was wee. I had even played H2O Tic-Tac-Toe* (on my driveway at one of our pool parties) with them.

*No, you can�t ask. Well, maybe later.

Steph and I moved it into second gear and shuffled into the bathroom. We each took showers and carefully applied makeup complete with waterproof mascara. (Wha? Yeah. Girls are weird sometimes.) And then we made the painfully slow selection of which bathing suit to wear.

�That one?� �No�, wait� Are my boobs showing?� �Sue, you don�t have any boobs.� �Oh, yeah, you�re right�� Hey, Your hair looks really cute in a ponytail.� �Thanks.� �Can I get away with a binkini?� �Of course you can.� �Oh damn, I�ve started my period.� �One piece for you!�

And then� the time consuming decisions on the bathing suit cover up.

I thought my father would chew his own face off before we left.

�Girls?�

�Girls�.?�

�girls��.?�.?�

�Are they even back there?�

Then. Dun DUN DUUUUNNN! We were ready.

We left at like 11:00 and met Ryan, Carter and his dad at the lake at 11:30 or so.

Stephanie and I were totally oiled up with a mixture of baby oil and iodine. It is a wonder we didn�t slide right out of those vinyl seats and into the water to be churned up by those dual manly turbine engines. Sweet. Oh� and then there�s the skin cancer factor. Did I mention that we are both normally the color of nuclear winter? She�s a breath-takingly, drop dead gorgeous red-head� and I�m� uh... Irish. Because we are smart. S-M-R-T. See? Smart.

And also� slippery.

So, we were gonna show these boys that we are cool. We were not normal girls.

We could snow ski with them. It�s a fact Jack.

Yeeeaaahhhh boooyyyeeeee.

We could water ski with them too, right?. Wait. Who is this Jack character?

Anyway, we headed out onto the lake in the boat. Ryan got out into the water with his one little lonely ski to slalom, shooting up rooster tails of water 15 feet into the air. Strangely reminiscent of when he �iced� me doing the same thing on my first youth snow ski trip with our church two years before. Showing off bastard. He was very good. He�s always been very athletic� and quite the poet (psst... he wrote me the sweetest poem in 8th grade English. I still have it.).

Then it was Carter�s turn to take a run on the skis. He decided to use some trick skis and a boom to hang out over the side of the boat. The crazy goob dropped both skis and barefooted in a small lagoon that was pretty still and placid. He was amazing and we were all whooping and hollering.

I had seen Cater jump on moving vans. I had seen him do flips on snow skis. I had seen him do incredible things with a half pipe and a pair of roller skates or a skateboard, but that took the cake. He got back in the boat and told us he wanted to be a stunt man when he graduated.

My father lifted an eyebrow.

You could tell that Gil thought his son was the shit.

We all skied over here in a cove and across the lake and there in a cove and across the lake and then Carter suggested that three of us, Ryan, Carter and myself all three ski together. Gil had three different rope lengths and the Viking (with wings) had enough power to pull that many people.

I looked toward my father for his ok and he said to Gil, �That will be fine as long as you make sure you don�t take any sudden turns, keep these kids out of other boats way and try to make it as smooth as possible so they won�t tangle their lines.�

Now I�ve been skiing since I was six or seven, same for Ryan and Carter. But under totally different circumstances. When my sister and I would ski together behind my father�s boat (longest distance, approx. 12 miles) we would be very aware of each other and the dangers of crossing lines, getting in each other�s wake, and general safety. These boys were� well� boys and were probably trying to kill their brothers from the time they exited their mother�s wombs.

I decided to take the shortest lead so they couldn�t pull me in or anything and I asked for two skis so I would have more control. Ryan and Carter were both slaloming so I thought that they would be wobblier.

Oh, not so my pretty.

We all got into the water and situated with our skis. Tips up. Thumbs up� Gil revved the engine and the Viking (with wings) screamed and pulled us all out of the water with nary a thought. We popped up like little bobbles and flew across the water because Gil (that fucker) was probably doing close to 60.

The Viking was an inboard so there wasn�t much of a wake to contend with so the next thing I knew, Carter and Ryan were pulling up their lines and coming flush with me. And. We. Were. Making. A. Turn.

Great. Rooster tail of water on my left. Water up the nostril, nice. Rooster tail of water on my right. Water up the nostril� nice.

Carter did a sling-shot out to the right to be parallel with the boat while his dad was making a counter clockwise turn in this cove and I saw him let his line out. I thought I was safe.

Ryan let his line out and they were playing chicken behind me while I ducked their lines between them.

Gil decided to make the SAME DAME TURN in the SAME DAME COVE and pulled a hard left.

Hi. Big fucking boat. Two inboard motors. Small Cove. Three skiers being pulled behind it. Equals = BIG WAVES!

My thighs were burning from the work out of being pulled so hard from such a big motor and fighting off the guys and their pull lines. There were three-foot waves in that small cove and I was keeping my tips up and riding them like Sea Biscuit (tm Greg Focker). When Gil pulled that last hard left to complete that last turn to come out of that cove, he crossed over his own wake and created the biggest wave of all for me to compete with.

I lost.

I tried to keep my tips up. My legs were too tired. We were going to fast.

Both ski tips went under and immediately went east and west. I hit the water princess first.

I have never hit the water that hard, that fast with my tender pieces. Not even at a water park on a huge water slide.

I thought my legs fell off.

My skis definitely fell off.

I couldn�t feel my body from the hips down.

Gil made the turn to pick me up and I made the feeble attempt to pick up my floating ski to hold it aloft like a downed skier should. To no avail.

Lake water enema: 1. Suz: 0.

I gingerly felt �down there� and realized that I did still have legs but that they were just numb. How was I going to tell the people on the boat, two of my peers� that happen to be guys that my hoo-ha just got ripped to pieces because Hey Carter? Your fucking dad wouldn�t slow down and I�m not that good of a skier and I thought I was tough!

[Please Note: Remember on my 100 Things About Me list? 91. I was never really afraid of anything growing up. 92. I attribute it to having a lot of guts or� incredible amounts of stupidity. This whole entry is a good example.]

Answer� I didn�t I sucked it up and yanked my little one piece bathing suit out of my ass (it was so far up there, it was incredible) and pulled myself up onto the stern of the boat with my feeble little shaking arms and laughed it off.

We hung out for a good portion of the day on the boat and watched the guys ski and Gil show off with his super duper tough man boat.

That afternoon when we got home, I went to the restroom to tinkle and change. I also needed to shower and put on clean panties and a pad because I had a tampon on all day from being at the lake. Sometimes being a girl is just yucky. I went to take out my tampon and� I couldn�t find it.

�Steph?�

�What?�

�Can, um� can you come in here for a second?�

�Sure� what�s up?�

�I can�t find my tampon.�

�Seriously?�

�Dude. Seriously.�

�Want me to go get your mom?�

So, horror of all horrors, my mother and I (with encouraging words from Stephanie in the hallway) used mirrors, dynamite and the powers of L. Ron Hubbard to deduce that the tampon was not in my young and impressionable princess.

The lake ate it.

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