N is for Ninnie

Ninnie is my best friend. Before you ask, Ninnie is her nickname and no I didn't give it to her. She had it when I got her.

We met in 7th grade where she hated me on sight. How could a person hate someone as wonderful and incredibly funny as me? Well because she is a bitch. Don't worry, she knows she is a bitch. It is one of the things that I love about her. Anyway, our last names were back to back in the alphabet so we got seated by each other and were forced to work together. By the end of the first day, we were on good terms. When she came in on Halloween dressed as a giant chicken, I knew I had found my best friend for life.

Ninnie's family had a cabin at a place called Skidway Lake. (Honest, I'm not making that up. I don't know who the brain child was that came up with that catchy name, but I imagine they had done a little thinking and a lot of drinking when they did.) Do to the name of it, it took a little convincing for me to go with her to the cottage, but once she assured me it wasn't laden with carnies and criminals, I figured eh, what the hell! 

One of the things to do in Skidway is to go canoeing. We packed a lunch, had her dad drop us at the rental place and started our adventure. Now I had never been canoeing before, so when Ninnie told me that we would get in the canoe,  float down the river, stop at the occasional beach along the path, relax and sunbathe I believed her. Turned out she was a big fat liar.

We started down the river, paddling nice and slow, enjoying the scenery... that's when we came to the rapids. OK, they weren't the huge ones that you see on TV where people get tossed from the boat; these were about a gradual 6ft drop of sharp rocks jutting out from beneath the surface. We tried to ride down them, but our canoe got stuck. So, we got out and did the only thing we could, we carried it down the slippery rocks incurring scrapes and bloody shins as we did.

She told me she had forgotten about that part, but assured me the rest of the river would be smooth sailing. We paddled for a short time, observing these huge silver bugs about the size of our palms swimming in the water.

"What the hell are those?" I asked.
"I don't know, but they're big," she replied.
"Do you know if they bite?"
"I don't know."
"Thanks, you've been a big help."

We continued down the river, trying to flick away any of the large silver creatures that attempted to invade our boat, when we saw some people up ahead getting out of their canoes and carrying them around this big tree that had fallen and blocked the path. Not wanting to have to get out of the canoe and brave the bugs, Ninnie came up with a brilliant plan.

"Ha! Look at those assholes getting out of the canoes to go around the tree. Morons! We'll just go under it."

"Do you think we'll fit?' I asked.

"Sure. Look at the opening. We will be able to go right under," she assured.

As we reached the tree, is was clear the opening wasn't as big as we had thought. We tried to change direction so we could go around, but the current was too strong and pulled us under it. And when I say us, I mean me as I was in the front of the boat and had to lay down to avoid hitting my head on the trunk and branches. That's when it got wedged. Ninnie's half of the boat was still sticking out. I looked up and saw about 10 spiders crawling above me and screamed for her to get me out. She tried pushing with her hands, but had no luck. She then used her paddle, pushing against the tree, getting me out far enough so that I could push my paddle against a part of the tree. Now out, we immediately flipped the canoe over to try to get out any spiders that were in it.

"You have a spider on your back," she said pointing.

"Get it off!" I screamed as I flailed about and tried to see it, looking like a dog chasing its tail.

She made a frowny face and shook her head no backing away from me and the spider. Somehow I managed to brush it off me, which caused her to jump back about 5 feet, clearly scared it was going to swim over, climb on her and make her his bitch, knowing that now, I wouldn't help her if it did. Lucky for her, it didn't.

We carried the canoe around the tree, and were attacked by mosquitoes that acted like we were steak on an all-you-can-eat buffet. We got in, went another half a mile and then SPLASH!

"Nin? Where'd you go?"

I looked back to see her standing in waist deep water, soaking wet, chasing me and her paddle down the river.

"Stop!" she yelled trudging through the water.

"How the hell do you want me to stop? These things don't exactly come with brakes." We heard a bunch of laughter coming from above. Turns out she had fallen in front of the first and only beach we saw. Naturally, no one helped. They just stood there pointing and laughing. Somehow I had managed to hold the boat with my paddle against the river floor long enough for her to get in.

"How much longer 'til the end?" I asked exasperatedly.

"About 4 miles..."

Thankfully, the rest of our trip was pretty calm. Ninnie was now dry from the sun and we got to relax. Still, by the time we reached the end,  we couldn't wait to go home. We saw people docking, getting out of their boats, and pulling it up the beach.

"Land!" Ninnie yelled.

We raced to the shore.

"Get me out of this damn thing," Ninnie said, as she exited the canoe, expecting to be in about 1 ft of water. Only she had jumped out the wrong side and fell into the 8ft drop-off, sinking like a rock. She swam to the shore and was dripping wet by the time we reached the beach where her father stood waiting.

"You girls have fun?" he asked as Ninnie and I, sunburned, starving, with mosquito bites everywhere, tried to get in the truck. "No, no. Not you," he said looking at Ninnie, "You're not getting my truck all wet. Get in the back."

"Wow, you were right, that was relaxing," I said to Ninnie as she sat shivering in the back of the truck. "Do it again tomorrow?"

"Well yeah. Duh."


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