If You Float MY Boat, I'll Float Yours

Chuckle #460 | July 13th, 2011
 scroll down to leave a comment

Boats are beautiful, fun, romantic, and they are everyone’s fantasy. If you agree, then you are probably a boat freak like me and you should NEVER EVER bring your checkbook with you to a boat show. But seriously, if you don’t dream of owning a boat, or at least deeply envy those who do, then you aren’t quite normal.

What can I say? Like Balzac, I am philosophically opposed to envy, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and (after my sweet husband) what my heart wants is a boat.

The boat show salesman won’t claim outright that buying a boat is a sound financial investment, because it’s not. They won’t mention things like maintenance, storage, repairs or slip costs. And unless they aren’t very bright, they won’t even whisper the naughtiest of all boat-buying words, “depreciation”.

To be honest, your college savings account would be much healthier if you chose “boat mooching” over buying. Moochers are shameless suck-ups who bombard boat owners with tedious stories about their fabled high school sailing careers and suggestively serve-up Dark and Stormies.

This technique works especially well if you also always show up with a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon.

Boat owners don’t really care about the high cost of owning a boat. They will sacrifice just about anything (sometimes even their marriage) to have that glorious chunk of fiberglass at their beck and call 24/7.

Yes, boating IS a kind of sickness. And don’t go thinking you can change someone who’s got it. You WILL end up living on a boat at some point in your life.

I too want my little slice of floating waterfront heaven, no matter how much it depreciates in the first two years. And I’m no rube, I once owned a boat. A devil boat. A boat that nearly killed my husband and I multiple times. She was twenty-six feet of the beamiest soul sucking, blown sails ever built. We off-loaded her on a crazy Swede who already had three boats and whose wife probably left him immediately after he acquired ours.

I still feel badly about that, just so you know, Sven, if you are out there somewhere, living alone on your boat.

The one thing I learned from our first major boat purchase is that the boat for sale at the Coast Guard auction may not be the bargain it seems. (Shame on you Coast Guard, you now share the blame for Sven’s sad and lonely life.)

We still own a few boats, but they are little trailer-able ones and they have never once tried to kill us. When we need more boats we rent them from the local community sailing center. (This IS a sound financial approach to boating.) We will eventually join the town yacht club which has a fleet of Ideals, all included in a ridiculously low membership fee. (Also a smart approach to boating.)

But we all know where this story ends. We will someday purchase another boat. It’s inevitable.

My husband and I are not yet on the same page regarding this “future” boat. I’m favoring a classic Duffy Electric Launch, on which I can host sunset cocktail cruises with my friends, and have a place to pee after drinking said cocktails. I do not want to have to pass out adult diapers to my friends before they board. (For sailing, we'll have the club Ideals.)

My husband would rather yank out each and every remaining hair on his head than go electric boat cocktail cruising. (Those Ideals are nice little sailboats though, when you think about it…)

My husband wants a sailboat because he is fascinated by the math/geometry behind sail shape and efficiency. I’m not sure he’s as fascinated by figuring out where the rocks are or with tracking fast moving storm fronts, so that makes ME nervous. I’ve experienced both the fog filled storm crossing and the pleasant “Sunday Sail”.

Guess which one I’d rather be on?

But I’m capable of compromise. If my husband wants me to help “float his boat”, he’s going to have to start his captain training now. A good captain takes years to “cook”. And sailing with his buddies, “the Lost Boys”, does NOT count.

In the meantime, maybe we could “float” my boat first…

-------------------------------------------------------------
Get your Weekly Chuckle via email at http://www.laughoutloudmom.com/
Copyright 2008-2011, LOLmom.com,  Greenwich CT, all rights reserved