Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Then they just lay there and burn


This is from a story much better told by Ojo. (Why does it seem like I'm always saying that?) At any rate, the short version of this story is that my dad, Ojo, our grandfather, and our younger cousin were out fishing when a nasty storm blew in. (Robo and his dad may have been with them as well, I'm not sure.) Initially my dad thought they could just outrun the stormfront and keep fishing as the storm blew ashore behind them. It didn't take long, however, for him to recognize that this storm was a) bigger than he thought, b) faster than he thought, and c) moving a different direction than he thought.
At this point he decided to just find a spot where the boat was least likely to sustain damage and drop anchor to ride out the storm. Everyone's getting drenched, freezing in the 30+ mph winds, and getting scared of all the lightning tearing through the sky. My younger cousin was hunkered down under the console narrating all the problems that faced them: "The wind's getting stronger. The waves are getting higher. The rain's getting harder."

Those who know Ojo are probably not surprised to hear that he was not a big fan of the strategy of entrusting their fates to the mercy of Mother Nature. So he wanted to come up with a better plan and asked dad, "What happens if that lightning strikes the boat?" To which dad replied, matter-of-factly, "Well, if that happens, we all die." Instant classic, only, of course, because they did not have to put that prediction to the test.

2 comments:

Ojo Rojo said...

To this day, the second scaredest I've ever been. (The first was on LSD when I thought I'd relived the forbidden fruit story from Genesis and was eternally damned.)

This episode with the storm created a persisting fear of lightning in me. And for good reason. That shit is a lot more likely than people think.

Snake Diggity said...

LMAO!