Guest: Canoeing doesn't float my boat

When the weather turns damp and horrible and all I want to do is curl up by the radiator, my coworkers always get the bright and chirpy idea of going canoeing together.

Lake temperatures tend to be somewhere between “frigid” and “freezing,” while my preferred swimming temperature is “jacuzzi.” And I’m not a fan of feeling miserable, unless I’ve just listened to an emo album.

So when the old canoeing / kayaking / getting soaked in a boat idea came up, it was just bad luck that I had been indulging in some Dashboard Confessional.

It was only about 50 feet from the rental place to the dock, but in the time it took to drag the canoes down, a thick mist fell.

My waterproof jacket immediately gave proof that it was neither waterproof nor, in fact, at all serviceable as a jacket.

Seized with a flash of temporary enthusiasm, I took it off and tied it around a post. Then I grabbed the oars and pushed off into the unknown, feeling very fit and inspired.

That lasted about five seconds. It might have lasted longer, but a massive spider rappelled down from a tree by the shore and blew right into my canoe.

You know how Revere, with muffled oar, silently rowed to the Charlestown shore? If it was me that Longfellow was writing about, the poem would be full of screams and sloshing.

Somewhere beyond the mist, one of my teammates bellowed to ask if I was okay. “Don’t worry about her!” cried another. “She’s a contract worker!”

At the end of a minute, the spider was nowhere to be seen. But I had lost an oar. I tried to paddle after it but ended up spinning in circles.

When I stopped spinning, I felt a cold sinking feeling, and not just because I had several inches of water in the bottom of my canoe.

I couldn’t see the dock. I didn’t know the way back.

I heard my boss’s voice float across the water, nattering about the precious bonding experience that canoeing was. I tried to move toward him.

The only way to row now was to stab at the water on one side of my boat, then heave the oar up and take a whack at the other side.

Soon my lap was dripping. And my shoes. And my hair, since it’s a lot harder to row smoothly than the movies make it out to be.

I never made it to my boss, which was probably a good thing considering my last performance review.

That’s because one of my fellow engineers, Rafe, decided to reenact the Titanic incident. He shot out of the mist like an iceberg and T-boned my canoe.

The water was not jacuzzi temperature. Not even close. Luckily, I didn’t fall all the way in. After my canoe stopped pitching, Rafe, gentleman that he is, offered to guide me back to shore.

They say teamwork makes the dream work. What it really made was a long, slow zigzag back to the dock. But I got there in the end.

So did the spider. When I was hauling my canoe back, I saw it crawling along the edge and nearly knocked Rafe’s head off with my remaining oar.

We squelched back to the bus and enjoyed the precious bonding experience of dripping all over the seats. It was only when I got back to the office that I realized I had left my jacket at the lake.

Perhaps it’s still there, warning workers not to go canoeing. I wouldn’t know. Maybe the spider could tell you.