8.13 Failure - Of Communication

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the thirteenth day of the month is "Failure."

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(TL; DR) People get lost on a lake and poor choices were made but everyone is found safe and sound. 

As you know, I returned to Michigan again last weekend for another graduation open house. Western Michigan was showing off on the day of the party (clear blue skies, 82, a breeze) and we all stayed too late sitting in a circle around an unlit campfire (drought conditions = fire ban) while my friend told a family story.  Buckle up, it's a ride. Also, the cast list is enormous.

My friends Gustavo and Cecelia (all names have been changed to protect the innocent) have what they call a "cabin" on a chain of lakes "up north." If I'm telling the story, I'd describe it as a shack in mid-Michigan with lake access, but I'm not telling the story.  They frequently invite folks to stay with them at the cabin and one weekend they invited a big group.

Gustavo's parents, Justine and Big Alan 

Gustavo's brother, Alan 

Alan's three children, Autumn (12), Conor (15), and Tristan (8)

Gustavo's niece Desdemona (12) and his nephew Blake (6)

Gustavo and Cecelia's own children Alice (17), Johannah (16), and Derrick (14)

Buffy (her real name) the dog was also present, but she doesn't actually play a role in the story. I just want you to imagine thirteen people and a big dog sleeping in what is essentially a two-room shack.  

Buffy (her real name) is the cutest, cuddliest, sweetest dog I've ever met. You can smoosh her face and kiss on her all you want. She's also good at ball and waiting for her food. I want Buffy to show Hannah how to be a real dog.

Anyway, Gustavo and Cecelia had taken their pontoon out earlier in the day and it had broken down. They just barely managed to get the pontoon to the dock before the engine sputtered again. They knew the pontoon was broken, but no one else really did.

Cecelia had been working all week and was tired, so she took off for a nap in the air-conditioned bedroom.  

Gustavo and his mom were cooking dinner in the kitchen.

So when Conor, Derrick, Autumn, and Desdemona asked Big Alan if they could take the kayaks to paddle the chain of lakes, Big Alan did not ask Gustavo or Cecelia if this was a good idea. He just said yes, told the kids to have fun, and off they went.

But. The thing is that it takes an hour to get around the chain of lakes on the pontoon. It's really a day trip if you're going to paddle it. And it was about an hour before the sun was going down.

Eventually Gustavo and his mom realize that not all the kids are coming to eat dinner. Where are they? Big Alan grunts about letting them kayak the chain of lakes. The kids have a fishing kayak (the Rolls-Royce of kayaks, I guess), two regular old kayaks, and an inflatable kayak.

Gustavo takes the younger boys out in the canoe to see if he can see them. After a short in and out of the channel, they see nothing. When Gustavo tells this part of the story, there are lots of embellishments about how they ran into a black bear and a nesting loon, but that's all made up because he felt badly for Tristan and Blake who didn't have much of a role in the rest of the story.

The sun is going to be setting soon and everyone's worried about these four kids. So Gustavo goes to get the neighbor guy who has a working pontoon and asks if he can help Gustavo find the kids on the lake. Neighbor guy gets all the gear - flashlights, towels, etc. - and just as they're about to unmoor the pontoon, Gustavo sees the yellow tip of an oar and sees Derrick's kayak. He calls off the neighbor, thanks him for helping, and wanders back to his cabin.

He gets to the cabin and sees Derrick and Conor.

"Where are the girls?"

"We left them crying two lakes back. I thought we'd just grab the pontoon and go back to get them."

Whomp whomp. You may recall that this entire saga began with the pontoon breaking down.

Gustavo and Alan take off in the kayaks that Derrick and Conor had just returned to find the girls. Gustavo is in the Rolls-Royce kayak and Conor is in a kayak that had been overturned and not completely emptied because the boys had had quite an adventure themselves.

Meanwhile, Cecelia is awake from her nap and is seriously pissed that Big Alan just let four kids with hardly any experience head off into the wilderness just before dusk. Her nieces are missing, her husband and brother-in-law are off looking for them, and it's officially past sunset now.  Justine starts picking up the yard because she's the kind of person who cleans when she's stressed and she realizes that there are an awful lot of beer bottles scattered around. Who drank all these? Well, that would be Alan who just took off in a sketchy kayak half-filled with lake water to find his daughter and niece in a chain of lakes he's never been on before.  

Gustavo and Alan are gone. Gustavo has the nice kayak and soon he loses Alan because Gustavo's kayak can get through some swampy areas, but Alan gets stuck.

Then Alan's phone starts ringing. It's the girls! They had somehow managed to get their kayaks to a random person's dock and knocked on doors until they found someone who would let them make a phone call. They call Alan's phone because it's the only number that either girl has memorized (sidenote: even with cell phones, we should all still memorize important phone numbers!).  All the kids are safe.

But what of Gustavo and Alan?

Cecelia manages to get Gustavo on the phone when he's in one of the small spots that gets reception in the middle of the lake. She tells him that the girls are safe, so he and Alan can come back. Just before Gustavo can tell her that Alan is missing, the call cuts out.

And Alan walks up behind everyone and says hello, scaring the pants off the more delicate members of the party.

Alan's side story is that he eventually did exactly what the girls did and docked his kayak at the first place he saw and he just walked the shoreline until he found the cabin. If I were him, I'd still be wandering around random shorelines because I have no sense of direction. I literally have no idea how he did this.

But Gustavo is still on the lake. 

Big Alan is on the phone with the 911 dispatcher.

Cecelia is panicked.

The kids are either pretending nothing is happening or sharing their exploits.

And then Gustavo finally makes it home before emergency services are activated.

What have we learned kids?

There's a reason we ask our moms if we can do things and not our grandfathers.