It is so hard to say goodbye to a four-star hotel. Especially when you know you’ll never stay at a Ritz again.
Though, I will say this: our ironing board was missing a foot, making it rickety. And the electric outlets in our room were installed upside down. Maybe it is really the Rits-Karltown, and we were mistaken.
But the towels, good heavens the towels were luxurious. You dried yourself clouds who had the misfortune of getting too close to the laundry room. The wait staff waded down into the infinity pool to bring drinks. People there fell all over themselves to help you. Breakfast this morning was the best buffet you could ever experience. The place smelled of potpourri and there was fine oak in dark accents everywhere you looked. Everything was granite-topped or better. Fine place.
After breakfast we checked out and went back to the lake house. Dave wanted to take us all out on the boat, so there we were, enjoying the sun and the breeze and a quiet stretch of Georgian lake and pine scenery.
Dave broke out the jet skis and people took turns riding them. One of them came free and The Yankee wanted to ride. She invited me along and I’m thinking She’s never driven one before. I’ve never been on one before. What could go wrong? I ask you again WHAT COULD GO WRONG!?!?!?!?
You drive a jet ski a little differently than other things that are not nautical. We putt-putt away and she says “How do you turn?”
“Wide. It doesn’t spin on a dime.” She turns the thing back in the general direction of the pontoon and guns it. We accelerate. We’re moving at a good clip. I glance down at the digital speedometer and see 52. (It should be noted we were on the slower of the two jet skis. And, if you are unaware, when you get in the 40-plus range on water, that is serious.)
I say “Slow down!” just as we cross a wake and are both elevated out of the seated position.
In the moment I had left before my savior called me home I decided it was either me or both of us. I pushed her shoulders down, forcing her back toward the jet ski and pushing me away. I fly off the thing somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 miles an hour. (Let’s call it 65, just to be safe.)
I managed to get my body turned to the right and tuck my right arm back in something close to a normal position and have mostly exhaled when I hit the water. And, if you’ve never done this: hitting the water at 145 miles per hour is not unlike hurling yourself into a sturdy wall.
I go under. And all of these are the first seven rapid-fire thoughts, occurring much faster than I can type them or you can read them:
1.) OOOOF!
2.) I’m glad for this life jacket.
3.) This is what death feels like.
4.) I’m going to die now.
5.) This is what broken ribs feel like.
6.) Wind, knocked out of me.
7.) Force breathing, force breathing.
That all happened in the amount of time I hit the water, submerged and the lake halted my flailing and flopping. I’d landed on my right side, feet towards the still-traveling jet ski, head back pointing at nothing in particular, and I took it all on my rib cage.
I haven’t absorbed a good shot like that in a long while. She said that by the time she had the jet ski turned around to find me she could already hear me grunting and straining to breathe. (The best way to do it, I believe, is just force your body to do it. The first two or three tries are no fun at all, but at least after that it is over and you can breathe again.) So I was in the water, thankful for the lifejacket (which I ordinarily hate) because I didn’t have to worry about swimming. I could just sound like some martial arts expert chopping a noisy tennis player in half while the tennis player volleys.
She turns to come back and I waved her off because that was all I could think to do. I really wanted to breathe and didn’t want to have to floating into her novice jet ski self. Finally I got it together enough that I brought her in, but I couldn’t climb on the stupid thing because I was wet, weak and slick from sun block. So she had to almost pick me up, like you see in westerns from time to time, but with much less grace. And that was pretty much my day. Before everyone got done with the boating I had gotten good and stiff.
I had some Advil at the lake house and then we hit the road. Just got home, in time to take some Ibuprofen and am moving verrrry gingerly. I haven’t bruised up, I can breathe, I don’t think anything is broken, but I got beat up good!
