Alright, so not too long ago
I attended a little family reunion of mine.
And it was with my mom's side of the family that we don't see too often,
considering they live all the way out in BFE, North Dakota.
Now, I gotta say it was a pretty good time,
but since nobody pooped their pants or got arrested,
this cartoon isn't about that trip.
Instead, this cartoon's about a conversation that I had with my uncle Sean,
while we were playing a game of Cornhole.
"Hey, I've seen all those stupid little cartoons you do on the internet,
why didn't you ever do a cartoon on the paddle boat incident?"
And at first I was like, "Paddle boat incident?
What paddle boat incident?"
And then all of a sudden it hit me.
(THUMP!)
"Oh my God, the goddamn paddle boat incident!
How could I forget?"
Now, at the time I didn't think I had any repressed memories.
Which, I guess, is what everybody thinks at first,
because, well, they're fucking repressed memories.
You're not supposed to remember them.
But as soon as my uncle Sean muttered those words,
(gutturally) "Paddle boat incident"
(TCHAA!)
I immediately time traveled back 20 years ago,
to the first time we had one of these little family reunions.
So there I am, 11 years old, at a cabin in North Dakota,
and I'm meeting my mom's side of the family for the first time.
Which, of course, means I'm meeting my uncle Sean for the first time.
And what better way to bond with your little nephew,
than offering to go out on a little paddle boat ride.
"Hey y'all, you want to go on this tiny little boat in the middle of a pond?"
"Uh, no, not really."
"Perfect! Let's go!"
So we pull this old-ass paddle boat out onto the shore,
and right before we get on the water my grandpa's like,
"Hey, Sean, be careful with that paddle boat,
there's a loose bearing on there somewhere and we're having some problems with it."
And my uncle Sean said...
nothing, because he didn't care.
So off we go out on the pond with this rickety-ass paddle boat,
and I have to say, I'm a little apprehensive for two reasons.
For one, I'm about as good a swimmer as a fucking late stage FDR,
which is not a good trait to have.
And for two,
I'm not the biggest fan of deep creepy-ass water to begin with.
Who the hell knows what kind of fucking Freddy Krueger shits down there waiting for ya?
Well, imagine my surprise, when we're out there and I look down at my feet
and I notice that there's a little bit of water pooling around our ankles.
Now, I'm no boat enthusiast, but I'm fairly certain
that the water is supposed to be on the outside of the goddamn boat.
But then I think, "You know what? It's probably all right.
I'm with my uncle, you know? He's an adult, he's responsible."
But then I look over,
and all of a sudden his ass is drunker than fucking 10 stepdads put together.
You see, apparently back on shore
my uncle Sean made himself a little cocktail of vodka and lemonade.
And I think it was safe to say
that the ratio that he used was a little lopsided.
First, you take the fifth of Smirnoff,
(gulp - gulp - gulp)
then you waft an unpeeled lemon around the rim,
(Dink!) Tadaa! Uncle Sean's lemonade.
So now I'm starting to panic.
I'm slowly starting to realize that this is gonna be an ordeal now.
"Uh, hey, maybe we should turn around and go back?"
"Oh, to hell with that! There's nothing to worry about!
I know this lake like my own asshole."
"When was the last time you even seen your own asshole?"
"What?
Look, we're not turning around until I finish this vodka, err, my lemonade.
Let's keep on going."
So we keep going, and of course, the water level keeps on rising.
I'm sitting there hoping my uncle Sean hurries up and drinks his goddamn drink.
But every time I look over, the fucking drink looks bigger and bigger.
Well, by the time we get to the middle of the pond,
the whole front end of the paddle boat's basically level with the plain of the water.
I'm like waist deep in this shit, we're more water than we are boat at this point.
My uncle Sean's over there totally oblivious,
still trying to make casual conversation and shit.
"So, uh, you like taking spelling tests at school?"
"Uh, I'm up to my asshole in pond water right now."
"You're what?
Whoa! Where the hell did all this water come from?
Uh, okay, yeah, we should probably turn back now."
So now we start pedaling our asses off,
like we're on the last leg of the Tour de France.
And of course, it doesn't take long
before my 11-year-old ass is completely exhausted
and can't even pedal anymore.
"Uh, you need to pedal faster."
"My calf muscles are underdeveloped, god damn it, I can't pedal anymore!"
So since my uncle Sean is the only one pedaling at this point,
we're just doing circles in this god-forsaken pond,
and we're still good distance from the shoreline.
Which is terrible news,
because now the water's up to my fucking neck,
and I'm starting to make my peace with God.
"God, please, if you get me out of this,
I'll give you all my Pokemon cards
including my holographic Charizard,
(All right, well, not my holographic Charizard, that's ridiculous)
but all the rest of them!
Meanwhile, everybody back on land
is totally oblivious to what the hell is happening on the waterfront.
"Hey, wasn't there a dirty little kid roaming around here at some point?"
"Oh, I don't know. Who the fuck cares?"
(Gulp - gulp - gulp)
So finally I just make up my mind and bail.
It's every man for himself at this point.
I'm swimming my ass off for the shoreline,
trying not to think of the fucking Freddy Krueger fish underneath me.
I go and look back behind me,
and the paddle boat is at a fucking 90 degree angle at this point,
looking like the goddamn Titanic.
My uncle Sean pulls out a fucking violin
and fucking plays it somehow without spilling his drink.
So I swim my little FDR ass as far as I can,
which is about 20 feet before I give up and I'm like,
"Alright, guess I'll die now."
And just when I thought all hope was lost,
I realized that I could fucking stand up in the water this entire time.
"Oh my God, I'm gonna make it!"
(Ahem!)
"Uh, God, the Pokemon deal is off the table."
So in the end both me and my uncle Sean
had to drag this shithole paddle boat that tried to murder us
back onto shore.
That's when my uncle Sean turns to me and is like,
"Hey, maybe don't tell anybody about this little mishap that we had out there?"
And you know what, that's exactly what I did!
I kept it a big ol' secret.
So much of a secret that apparently it turned into a fucking repressed memory.
"Yeah, I was wondering why you didn't make that into a cartoon.
Hell, I was worried that I traumatized the shit out of you, ha-ha!"
So the whole moral of the story is:
one, to hell with ponds and their fucking Freddy Krueger fish.
Two, fuck paddle boats,
they are the worst form of transportation known to man.
And three, don't have your drunk-ass uncle be your captain.
"Well, that was a blast, what do you want to do next?
You want to go on the jet ski?
All right, let me go make another drink real quick and we'll hop on the jet ski."
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