A-Tubing We Will Go

Once upon a time, on a camping weekend, we decided to go tubing.  I have never tubed before, but as it was described, it sounded harmless and fun.

“You’ll have to leave your belongings locked in your car,” the clerk at the tube rental place said, “and walk your tubes down to the river.”

“Along that busy street?” 

“Yes.”

God.

Holding a tube over my head, wearing just a bathing suit was going to embarrass the Hell out of me forever, but, wearing just my bathing suit marching along a busy highway?  Kill me.  

My daughter, Krista, had already begun the trek down the road so I tried to hold the tube at my side to shield the drivers.  But, I dropped the tube and had to bend over to pick it up.  A car horn honked, then brakes screeched.  With my un-tan, poultry-white leg-skin, I must have looked like a tailless, albino mare.

“What is that?”  I imagined the driver saying to his passenger. 

“That’s something’s ass.”

I was relieved once we reached the river--I would be less visible there.  I plopped onto my tube, my knees wide apart and pressed against my stomach like a "Butterball" ready to be trussed.  

The last time I was in this position, someone was shouting “Push!”

The river was low due to a lack of rainfall.  I could only float for about 5 feet before my butt crashed into a protruding rock.  By now, my kid was floating way ahead alone.  The only way to catch up was to lift my butt out of the tube hole and float a little until my muscles gave out, then do it again. 

A younger man at the shore saw me doing this and dry-heaved.

Aboard the bus that returned us to our car, towel-less and sore, I gave up trying to cover myself.  In the bus seat, Krista elbowed me and pointed to my chest.  I looked down, and realized one of the under-wires from my bathing suit bra had sprung free and was protruding in a half-moon up to my neck. 

“Mom, what’s that?”  Krista asked.

“Oh, nothing.  Just my dignity.”