Rubber Ducky, You'Re So Fine for the Next Time

“As I was saying,” and looking out the truck window, I became somewhat confused.
“Confused?” you repeated, “Yes.” How is it that the jet ski belonging to a dear family
friend is in one lane headed in the same direction and speed as we are in the truck.
Shouldn’t the jet ski be behind the truck?

‘Course, now we have time to ask these questions, but at the moment of reality, all that one had time to do was to monitor the speed on a four-lane, 70-mph highway, that somehow, and somehow miraculously, was devoid of motorized vehicles in our two lanes.

The next action is WR started weaving, not drunkenly of course, but so as to position his brand new truck as a barrier to the jet ski moving into another vehicle or worse, jump the ditched middle in lieu of wire barriers that are usually in sight along Hwy 74 way before Maxton and Lumberton. His thought, to position the truck so that he could follow the roadway pattern of the slowing, but still traveling around 50 mph, jet ski on a trailer, with two chains dragging and sparking up the highway -- where there had been one chain, I surmised that the heavy duty chain had come apart with a series of bumps, not really like ski moguls, but more like a line of ridges that just showed up on the highway -- the kind that make one go uhujuhuhujunuhu and as quickly as one enters the series one is out of them. In our case, as soon as we cleared the ridges, the jet ski took off on its own wavering pathway, and with its medieval ball bearing clamp at the end of the trailer tongue, it found its maternal entry by slicing right through a bumper and a bumper guard on the back side of the Toyota Tundra. Why couldn’t it enter and pop itself back on the trailer hitch. In moments, that seemed to be an hour’s worth, the trailer, the jet ski, and myself and a miracle driver were in the middle of a four-lane highway with cars and trucks and assorted long distance carriers were buzzing by.

No one was hurt, well, not exactly sure how, but WR sliced a pad of skin off his thumb and was bleeding. He was so intent on capturing the runaway, borrowed, very expensive ski beast that hours before, I had been riding the ocean waves upon, knowing it would be my last adventure, or so I thought, on such an oceanographic bull. All we could think about was Alleluia, Praise the Lord, and the Sisters said Amen. We sat in silence and marveled at how fortunate we were to be pinching each other and saying are you alright, I’m alright, are you alright?

Next action, How to take a broken heavy duty chain, and a spare rubberized chain from
some long ago fixation WR had and threw it in the over-filled, vacation toy laden truck bed, and re-worked the safety mechanisms. This time, instead of the speed limit, we were stopping every 500 feet and every dip in the old Plank Road to verify if his handiwork would hold. A three hour trip became a 5.5 hour trip.

A viable solution: Always travel with a plucky older man who knows how to do stuff who is still physically strong and never gives up to solve a difficult situation. My solution: Never pull someone else’s jet ski, ever again. Use a rubberized ducky to just wade in an ocean tide pool, that’s excitement enough.