more than a feeling

So…sailing. The feeling was affirmed alright. But I was wrong about it. Quite wrong. For starters, I never thought that when I squeezed into a shitty sedan with five other people that I would have one of the nastiest experiences of my life. It was a hot day, and as luck would have it, the car windows were broken so that they wouldn’t roll down. But this kid had air conditioning. Everything was going to be okay. Or so I thought. I was even on the side, near the window, so that one of the a.c. vents hit me directly in the face. I was chatting away with some kid I had met a couple months before, when all of a sudden, I got blasted in the face with this white, dusty looking stuff. It only took one more time for this to happen, and the sight of the kid who was driving scratching his shaggy, as I would soon find out, unconditioned hair to know what was going on. Yeah. Every time this kid would touch his head (which was about once every 30 seconds, probably because it was so freakin itchy) I would get showered in a whirlwind of dead skin flakes carried over to me on the breeze of the air conditioner that was aimed directly at my head. Ugh. It’s gross even writing about this. It was literally sheets of dandruff flying directly at my face, and there was nothing I could do about it but gag, cover my nose and mouth, and sport the most horrified, scrunched up face imaginable. After all, I couldn’t ask him to roll down a window – they were BROKEN – and I couldn’t lean the other way, as there were three other people crammed in the back seat. I had to endure dandruff, stray hairs, and even a BUG for the entire twenty minute drive over. It was absolutely hellacious. I can’t help but wonder what the kid sitting next to me was thinking, when I stopped talking as soon as I figured out what was going on and started choking in my small corner of the car. Things started looking up when we arrived at the boathouse, however. I sprinted out of the car and proceeded to get ready for my encounter with the pirates. Didn’t quite happen, because I had to share a boat with a husband and wife team from the grad school. So because they were selfish pricks, I spent a majority of the time riding around in the motor boat, which was awesome. I actually had a lot more fun doing that, but for the last ten minutes of class I had to share the boat with the husband, who refused to let me till, because HE had sailed before back home in the south. I mean, why the fuck are you even taking the class if you’re such an expert? He was one of those know-it-all bastards who felt the need to coach me throughout the entire process. A typical conversation between me and Mr. America consisted of:

“Hey! Am I makin’ ya nervous?! Heh heh!” (while turning the boat up onto its side)
“Haha, a little bit.”
“Oh! Haha! I’ll go a little easier! Haha!”
“Haha. Okay!” (despite the fact that it’s not even fun if you don’t run the risk of capsizing the motherfucker. come on, I needed some excitement after all I was allowed to do was pull on two ropes.)

2 minutes later

“Oh! Aha ha! Am I making you nervous again?!” (again putting the boat on its side)
“Just a little.”
“Oh! Well, you see, I won’t let us fall in. I don’t want to get wet. HA HA!!!”

And the result of all of this tomfoolery was that I got absolutely drenched in nasty salt water, something which has never happened with my fellow beginners. But somehow this bigshot managed to do it. That, AND he steered me away from the pirates. (He knows we would have made him walk the plank.)

And the irony of all of this, is that I had to bum a ride back to school with him because I refused to step foot in the car with the nasty scalp kid again.