Miranda's playing her sax in the pit while Sunshine is up on stage playing a "Munchkin." Sunshine and her fellow munchkins were chosen from a group of elementary school kids who answered the high school's casting call. Margie's been run ragged (with a little help from Grandma), getting kids (including both kids' friends) to and from practice.
And tonight, I actually get a night off so I can see both girls shine!
When I got comfortable in my writing chair, I didn't intend to mention the girls. Eh, it happens. I'm a Dad. It's my job.
What I intended to expound on was a funny incident I had recently. Seems the lake in my jurisdiction was lowered for the winter. Since it's no longer winter (ignore the huge snow piles), the lake was allowed to rise to its normal level and in the process, a small dock section broke loose.
So I found myself wondering what kind of newfangled craft was sailing the partially ice-laden lake so early in the season as I drove by on my way to work. A couple of calls and of course, a couple of reports later, I found myself staring at the escaped dock sitting about twenty feet offshore.
Now, those of you who know me also know my closest interaction with horses or rodeos or lassos involves loading my pickup (I searched for the perfect truck for a year, boring everyone with my rant, "I just want a truck to get horse manure for my garden") with hay-infused fertilizer from the local horse barn.
Consequently, standing facing my opponent with a lasso fashioned from a length of extension cord (hey, it was that or unravel the hat Margie knitted- the extension cord wouldn't get me um, emasculated...) I knew anyone with a camera would soon have a winning video for one of those annoying "America's funniest" shows.
True to form, thirty-some tries later, I managed to lasso a corner post of the escapee. Proud of my accomplishments, I grinned and yanked on the cord and dispatch called my number, sending me on a medical call.
Thirty minutes later, my patient safely packaged on the bus and headed to the local hospital, I returned, with a reinforcement. My partner, who wishes to remain anonymous (smart man) and I yanked and tugged, beaching the dock about four feet from shore. No longer would the wicked dock threaten other docks and cause a hazard to navigation.
Good once again prevailed over evil.
I asked my partner to tie the line to a post (Somewhere in my office is a proclamation demanding that I never try to tie a knot while on a sailboat under threat of plank-walking -It's another long story....). He politely declined, stating he was limited to tying shoes and "one on" and apparently his doctor nixed the "tying one on" after his last physical.
I grabbed the line and made a knot Captain Ahab would have been proud of, grabbed my partner's camera, deleted a few frames over his comments about "destroying evidence" and cleared the call.
So now I'm off to see the Wizard, wonderful girls of mine and all. I'll be trolling You-tube for videos of the dock rescues from my phone the whole time, I'm sure. The next time I tell someone I'm interviewing, "this ain't my first rodeo," I will actually mean it. Go figure.
Which leads me to the one unanswered question, "Is anyone out there missing a dock?"
Who is the stranger with all the information?
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