That One Time at the Lake...

There are a lot of things in life I simply don't like (spiders, mornings, etc), but the things I truly loathe are few and far between.  One of those things is being dragged behind a boat.  I hate it. It's scary and dangerous and makes every muscle in my body scream for a week afterwards.

Let's be clear: it's not the boats.  It's not that I don't trust boats, or that I'm afraid of sinking, or that I don't like being in bodies of water too deep for me to touch the bottom of.  That's not the case at all!  I'm perfectly happy to be riding in the boat, but the instant someone tries to put me behind it and drag me around with nothing but a rope and a floaty thing and call it a sport, I'm done.  I've never had a good experience with it and I'm convinced I never will.  Water sports and I just simply aren't meant to be together.

Most of my experiences behind a boat have involved two things: inner tubes and concussions.  I'm sure the adults in my family don't mean to give the children head injuries, but somehow someone always ends up with one before we leave.

I go through the same cycle every time I go tubing with my family:

First, I get all excited and totally on-board with the idea of doing something fun with my cousins, ignoring completely the utter terror I felt the last time I decided to do this.

I get into the boat and smile a lot.

Then it's my turn to ride the tube of doom, and I start to feel uneasy

...but I keep that smile on my face the whole time

I position myself on the tube next to my cousins, and I immediately begin to break down.  My whole body starts shaking so much I'm pretty sure I won't be able to hang on at all

Then we start to go, and I begin to realize my uncle was lying when he told me we could "take it slow" and it would "be a fun ride"

I'm hanging on for dear life

We get whipped around all over the place and usually go airborne a few times

I let go...

The boat comes back for me and I crawl in vowing to never do that ever again

And then the next summer, I decide to do it again.  Something is wrong with me.