Can You Canoe?

FOR YEARS, MY MAMA begged for a canoe trip. One sunny morning my daddy surprised Mama with her long-awaited adventure. She squealed in excitement as they drove to the Chattahoochee River. My brother Zach tagged along with his kayak.

But Mama’s highly anticipated trip didn’t turn out quite the way she’d imagined. They had forgotten about the torrential rains of the previous weeks, so a serene float on a normally calm river became white-water rafting, and the canoe flipped again and again. My brother paddled to save the canoe as Daddy scrambled to save Mama.

Hanging from a fallen tree, Mama yelled, “Go on without me! I’ll walk through the woods till I find a house!”

“Nope,” Daddy replied. “You were the one who wanted this trip and you’re going to finish it.” Mama climbed back down the fallen tree and into the beat-up canoe.

At the end of the trip, Mama, soaked and muddy, stumbled out of the canoe and thrust a broken paddle at the astonished rental agent, mumbling under her breath as she walked away.

I think the next adventure she picks will be somewhere stationary—like a beach.