Aunt Laura goes inner tubing

My in-laws used to have a party barge and we'd all pile on it and go out to some pretty awesome lakes in Arkansas. Sometimes we fished, sometimes we just putted around and once we went tubing. If you know anything about a party barge, you'll know that they don't go very fast. That's a good thing if you're the person being dragged behind it in an inner tube. 

There are some pretty sophisticated water toys out there these days. It's not like it was when I was a teenager. We used old inner tubes and you had to be careful to make sure the valve stem was pointed down, otherwise, you'd scratch your hiney all to heck. Now days, the tubes have cloth covers and hand holds and are big.

My brother in law had a strange type of tube that was sort of like the one in the picture:  To start, the rider had to perch on their knees at the back of the round thing until a certain speed was obtained. Since it had an opening at the front, massive quantities of water would pour in when the ride first got started. It took strength, balance, coordination and intestinal fortitude to master that ride.  

Aunt Laura tried to ride it but it didn't work out so well. In my opinion, the boat driver went a little too slow at the beginning so the tube bogged down with water. In the driver's defense, Laura was screaming for him not to go fast. The people in the next county over knew that whoever was being yelled at, should NOT       GO         FAST. Laura tried over and over to master that ride and each time she tried, she got a face full of water, or bogged down and couldn't get upright or a whole host of other things.

If you've ever tried water sports like this, you know how exhausting it can be. Constant swimming, fighting to keep your swimsuit on, trying to climb upright in a slippery wet tube that's bucking and sliding underneath you as well as trying to look cool and not show that you just ingested 45 gallons of lake water through your nose and it can wear a person out!! It wore Laura out. She tried a bunch of times and finally decided that she was finished. We motored around and pulled the boat up beside her so she could climb up. The poor girl was so tired, she couldn't get up on the deck of the boat. She tried and tried, her brother tried lifting her by joining hands all to no avail. Then, her brother got the bright idea to physically try to manhandle her out of the water. As he was trying to grasp her, she was trying to get out of the water and they both were not succeeding. Finally after a lot of grunting, groaning and struggling we all heard Laura yell at the top of her lungs "JUST GRAB MY ASS!!!!!" As soon as she yelled that, everyone on the boat got the giggles. It wasn't funny that she was too tired to get out of the water but it was funny to hear her bellow "JUST GRAB MY ASS!!!" The brother that was pulling on her collapsed in a heap, laughing his head off. All of the rest of us on the boat were laughing our heads off. But poor Laura was still stuck in the water. She was probably mad that we all weren't trying to help her out of the water since we were laughing so hard.

Laura finally got out of the water and after the worry that she'd have a heart attack passed, she got to laughing at what she said, too. For the rest of the weekend, "just grab my ass" was said over and over and there were many laughs. Thank gosh Laura is such a good sport. She laughs at herself which I think is big.