It’s just another day

It was a dark and stormy night, and a rainy and windy dawn. I loaded my boat with things I am taking home to Iowa, as it will take many trips to get everything to my car. Crossing the lake, I thought to myself, “It is really windy today! ” but since I was heading for a relatively sheltered bay, I wasn’t too worried about it, even though it was only 34°. When I got to the dock I began to tie up the stern of my boat, as I always do. But as I reached for the dock, a big gust of wind came from under the dock, blowing the boat away from the dock. I continued to hold on to the dock because I didn’t want the boat blowing into shore. Another gust of wind gave the boat another sideways shove and I found myself holding on to the dock with my hands while my seat was still in the boat, with the rest of my buddy horizontal over the water. Unfortunately I had my backpack on and it was underneath my torso in the water. It prevented me from sliding back into the boat because its bulk kept catching on the gunwale. A third gust of wind blew the boat further out and my rear further into the water. This left my feet dangling in the boat, my hands entangled in the rope on the dock, and the rest of me doing a reverse plank over the water, temporarily buoyed by my increasingly waterlogged backpack. Realizing that this situation could end badly, as I had my phone in my pocket, I gave a Herculean kick with my two dry feet and got my rear back into the boat. Meanwhile the boat kept inching its way towards the rocks on the shore. Finally I got a better grip on the dock, got the boat back where it belonged and tied up very securely (I hope) and unloaded all my wet gear bound for Iowa. I arrived at work at the forest service wet from my chest to my knees, freezing, with a soaked lunch bag, a now unreadable book, some soggy toilet paper, but otherwise okay. You never know what’s going to happen on the way to work.