Seafoodpunch

A little while ago, my wallet was stolen at the local Movie Theatre. It either dropped out of my bag, or some sneaky son of a Bi$%*  managed to grope around my backpack while I was oblivious to everything except for the chubby kid next to me crunching down on hand-fulls of popcorn.

I was PISSED. Not only was the movie HORRIBLE, but it was also one of the most expensive cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. No film is worth 250 bux. Some people are just inconsiderate butt-munchers. Ugh, I still get upset when I think about it, but instead of  imagining the glory of shoving a giant pineapple up the thief’s no-no place, I’d  rather reminisce about the almost miraculous event on the other end of the wallet loss spectrum:

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I don’t know what prompted me to bring my prescription sunglasses, wallet and cell phone on a rafting trip, but I did.  A couple of my friends decided that it would be a spectacular idea to buy a Wal-Mart inflatable raft and float on a river and I apparently thought it would be an even better idea to carry wads of cash and a phone in case I needed to call AAA or something.

We asked a clueless fisherman where the calmest part of the river was, and then proceeded to squeeze ourselves into the flimsy raft that looked more like floating yellow garbage bag. Even if we were in the calmest part of the river, it wouldn’t have mattered, because our friend Dave had no friggin idea how to row. We spun around down the river in circles and yelled at Dave who just sat between us completely bewildered: “I didn’t know rowing was this hard”. 

We knew we were in trouble when my other friend, Jesse, tried grabbing a low hanging branch (that almost lopped our heads off) to stop us. He ended up pulling the whole dead tree it was attached to into the boat. Obviously, a raft meant for nothing more than paddling around in a swimming-pool couldn’t handle the sudden change in weight and flipped over.

The entire event also caused Dave to freak out and he proceeded to scream and let go of the oars so he could hold on to the boat for dear life. We weren’t too far from the shore when this happened and managed to pull ourselves to a shallower section of the river by crawling along the fallen tree like soggy rats. Of course we ended up on the less forgiving side of the river, trapped between the rising water and thorn covered bushes. Our raft was now covered in holes, and we were all suffering from a mild case of hypothermia.

The fact that I lost my bag with all my belongings was the last thing on my mind.  We had to take turns lying on the floating remnants of the raft to get out of the water and warm up every thirty minutes or so. It was embarrassing when the same fisherman who had told us that the river was completely safe poked his head out from behind the thick underbrush on the other side of the water. What really killed us was that the other side was also covered in soft sand, and harmless trees. We could have easily made it back to our car from there. We ended up on the section blessed with raspberry bushes (no fruit, I might add) that seemed to scratch at us every other second.

In the end, the fire department cut down some bushes and threw a rope our way. It was pretty exciting to watch them scooch across the river by rope and then strap us to their vests for the ride back. This was my very first rafting experience. Did I also mention we weren’t wearing life jackets? Yes, we were some geniuses.

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Two years later I get a call from someone:

“Is this Dani?”

“Uhm, Yeah.”

“Did you happen to lose a wallet? I found one while fishing.”

“What? No…”

“Are you sure? It has your Driver’s License in it. It has your name on it and everything.”

Was this some sort of joke? Were there little tweenies on the other line about to explode with laughter at my expense? Wait…No….Holy Crap! He friggin found the wallet that rolled out of the raft over two years ago.

“Wait. Yeah, that’s mine! I lost that forever ago.”

In the end, a really nice gentlemen rolled to my apartment in his Audi and proceeded to hand me a soggy wallet covered in algae and with $200 worth of limp bills wedged inside.  Little bite marks were abundant on the cash where fish had sampled the outlandish cuisine, but I don’t  think they really developed a taste for it.

I pulled out a couple limp $20 bills and offered them to the man who was now looking at me rather oddly, but he just smiled and rushed to his car. Then I had a thought: Maybe  dumping a few wallets in the river was a good way to meet more people. Ok, maybe it was a ridiculous idea…even though it would make a DAMN good reality show.

I spent most of that money since then, but I still keep one of the original cruddy 5 dollar bills as a reminder to never buy a damn raft from Wal-Mart again, even if it did make for a good story.