Every year my friend Eric plans an elaborate float trip down some lazy river.  And every year I go … begrudgingly.  The only reason I go is because of my fondness for Eric.  He lives for this shit.  Plus, I can tolerate two days in some rural, backwater, redneck, hillbilly, Podunk, godforsaken river town in Missouri or Arkansas. 

The first year I went on the float trip we bunked at a dude ranch.  It was a horrible choice on Eric’s part — knowing full-well my complete and utter fear of horses.  Yes, I know it’s irrational, but let’s just say I refused to come out of the cabin until all the horses were corralled in the barn.  And I demanded the top bunk bed on the second story … lest a horse burst through the door to climb the stairs and eat my face off.

The second year there was so much drama on the trip I could have killed someone.  Easily.  With my oar.  Everyone was so drunk I could have tipped them off the raft – only to watch them get eaten alive by mosquitoes.  Trust me, they deserved it.

This year was relatively pain-free.   We stayed in a lovely little holler in the middle of Eminence, Missouri.  I could not get Blackberry reception for two days – so I was completely cut off from civilization.  In the span of two hours I heard the term “purt-near” used three different times.  “Purt-near”, if you’re not familiar, is slang for nearly, about or almost.  As in “I was purt-near ‘bout to kill that bear with my hands.”   Or “That was purt-near the best ‘durn huckleberry pie I ever did eat!”

On these float trips I tend to be about as useless as possible.  I figure the less work I do, the greater the chance I won’t get invited back.  I refuse to row or steer the oversized inner tube.  I don’t pack, carry or haul anything.  And usually I demand no one makes eye contact with me for the first four hours of the trip.  It takes me that long to warm up to the fact I’m surrounded by the cast of “Deliverance”. 

Normally I’m wan to wear my big floppy Ann Taylor hat and Jackie O sunglasses so as not to get sunburned.  Unfortunately, Eric ripped those off my head at the end of the trip last year.  He probably sold them for meth.  This year I wore a $6 pair of wraparound sunglasses (circa 1994) and a ratty Hard Rock Café baseball hat.  And I liberally applied SPF 90 all over my being.  Between the sunscreen and the bug spray, I looked like a moving oil slick.  If I fell in the water, someone would have immediately called the EPA.

I love my friends very much … and that’s why I suffer the indignity of getting on a river with a bunch of drunken morons.  And, yes, I’m talking about my friends.