We Need A Bigger Boat...

Some people think a boat is private property on the mere basis that if a person pays for the boat, gas, mooring, license, insurance and beer, they own the boat and can make all the rules, but it just ain’t so. If a man owns a truck, he knows before he gets that truck, that he has to help his relatives move things. Because we all say, “Well, Gerry has a truck. He can haul the old refrigerator to the dump.” If a man owns a boat, he knows before he gets that boat, that he has to take relatives out. Because we all say, “Call Gerry, see if he’s going out today.”

Last week I shared that one of the ways to tell if one of your relatives has gotten a boat but they’re holding out on telling you is to check for sunburn under their arms or chin, places where the sun reflects up off the water and finds new skin to burn. But there are some other ways to tell if they’ve gotten a boat:

Have you spotted them a little too often at the ice machine very late at night, or very early in the morning?

Have you noticed any changes in their parking techniques? Do they park normally, or do they cut the car engine and coast in at a shallow angle until the tires bump the curb?

When your cousin visits, does she instinctively jam her purse between your couch cushions?

When you have them to dinner, do they all hold onto their drinks and never put them down until the drink is drunk?

When they go down your hall to the bathroom, are they reaching for handrails that aren’t there?

Any there any linguistic changes? When your cousin is doing a few dishes in your sink and her hubby comes up behind her, as all men do when we are washing dishes, does she firmly tell him, “Honey, you better throttle back....”.

Have any of your relatives shown a sudden interest in UFO abductions? Are any of them claiming that they are “missing time” ? Some of you are thinking, “How stupid. Who wants to thought of as a nut just to avoid telling their family they got a boat?” Answer: It all depends on how nice the boat is. If I had a gorgeous mahogany launch, I’d want my relatives to think I was serial killer who used my victims for chum...

Did any of your relatives give you the JAWS 3 DVD set for a gift recently? Are they sending you clippings of all the sharks attacks they can find? Do they like to cite the fact that all the record breaking Great Whites are caught off of Montauk? Any reason they’d want you to fear salt water?

When you have lunch at their house, do they serve you a smashed sandwich that smells like fish, but it’s ham salad?

When you take the ferry with them, do their children ask, “How come we don’t have to wear preservers on this boat? You said we have to wear preservers whenever...” and you turn to see someone has jammed three oreo’s into that kid’s mouth.

Is your male relative is wearing a St. Christopher medal (Patron Saint of Mariners), but he’s not Catholic?

You look out into his backyard and the garden hose isn’t looped carelessly over a hook on the garage, it’s coiled neatly on the ground.

You go with your female cousin to Jack’s Marina & Toy Emporium (on Shelter Island) for some new games and toys, and you notice that she’s tied off her cart to the counter with a jump rope in a half hitch knot. And for some reason she’s now wandering around in the marina section...

If you’ve figured out someone has a boat, do what I do. Get to their dock early with a cooler of beer. I like to drape my body over the cooler, clutching my crabnet and breathing shallow. When they see me, they’ll see I’m wasting away to practically nothing and sometimes take me out fishing for pity sake. Or the man will just throw the cooler in the boat and not notice the cord from the cooler to my ankle. When he pulls out, I let myself flop in the water, then I use the crabnet to catch to some rigging and pull myself up and in. By the time he makes speed, I’m in like Flynn...