Summer Days

          It was some day in the summer of ’98 and Patti and I were heading towards our “secret spot”. It was incredibly sunny and the air tasted of chlorine and the sea. Excitement was overcoming us as we approached the boats. I do not know why it never occurred to us to borrow a rowboat. Many times had we tried to cross when the tide was very low, but lately tide was low so we were going to borrow a boat today?

          “Marcia, are you ready?” She looked t me with fear and excitement in her eyes. Never had we ever taken something like that. It was not as if it was stealing we were just borrowing it so we could play and then we would put it back.

          “Si, Patti be quick ok just lift it up when I say three. One, two, three.” I smiled like always and told her not to worry. “Marcia I hope we do not get in trouble I do not want that cop lady saying anything to us”.  I looked at her in disappointment. “Patti, what’s the worse that can happen? We get caught and we just say that we found it don’t worry I thought you said we were living dangerously remember?” She laughed and said “OK whatever you say but, don’t say I didn’t tell you” Bring the boat down was the only difficult part of the process. We brought it down to the shallow part of the beach and got in the boat. Each of us sat on opposite sides of the rowboat. We placed all our things down in the middle so the weight would balance out. We began to row and I remember her saying to me “Lets pretend were going somewhere far” I said “Ok but don’t you think were a little too old for pretending?” Ignoring the comment she just kept on rowing. We finally got to the other side of the beach it had taken us about an hour and half to load and then another twenty minutes to unload again. Looking at my pink watch, I said. “It has taken us forever to get here could you have been any slower?” Patti always had those tendencies to be calm and not say a word. Me being the me that I am would always try to be bad ass and cool but obviously it didn’t work.

          When we reached the other side we took our stuff out and hung out for a while. Then suddenly I herd a scream “Marcia, my sandal. My sandal it fell into the water. Marcia what am I going to do my mom is going to kill me” I started laughing hysterically. I usually find sad moments funny for some reason. I could tell she got pist off. “Marcia it’s not funny you better help me” I said “Okay, chic, relax how the hell are we going to do this? I think we better pack up and just leave. We will just have to get it out some how fish it out.” Suddenly the current of the sea moved us far from reach of the sandal. Then the sandal started floating towards ducks and geese. Luckily, we had some left over chips from our lunch earlier. We started throwing the chips at the ducks, the ducks seemed to be enjoying what we were giving the. Then they started following us. One of the ducks started coming closer and closer and Patti and I started panicking. When I turned around Patti had thrown an oar at a duck. I tried to keep the balance of the boat but it didn’t work. The funny part was we ended up in the water soaking wet. So much for trying to get across without getting wet and dirty.