...to be put in uncomfortable situations

So I've been doing stuff.

Guiding trips on the reg now along with my fellow full-timers, learning new stuff everyday and making ends from frenemies.

Our first multi-boat trip that we did this year was, well, mostly a failure. Something that is very important when guiding these trips is to always keep good spacing between your own boat and the other boats in the trip. Now, this was our first time, but it was about as miserable as it could have been.

Look at these... http://www.rapidshootersmaine.com/windfall/2012/0707k/boat02/index.htm ... This is Kyle's boat, and there is Kyle, along with Me and then Marissa all in the same picture, which shouldn't happen, basically ever. Marissa has some incredible facial expressions courtesy of Rapid Shooters. And there is Kyle up front, smiling to the camera, oblivious to the carnage a few yards behind him, oops. I remember dropping into Big Mama, looking behind me, and thinking (for a few scary seconds) that the boat behind me would land on my boat and crush my innocent customers. BUT. It wasn't to be. Everyone was safe and fine and we all learned some, very, important lessons.

The ten boat trip went quite a bit better this past Tuesday. For Windfall, that is almost the maximum. Add camp kids and we had a recipe for crazy muffins that the river was about to bake. But, bake it did not and we had a great trip in some great weather.

Now, story time... I'm going to use the most politically correct terms I can conjure up when writing this so let your imagination run wild... I don't like people touching me. I don't like people in my bubble, I don't like people dragging me into the water and I definitely don't like people "grazing certain zones of my body with their metacarpus in a quick, repetitive, manner". Yeah, I definitely don't like that. In fact, I don't like watching other people touch themselves in a strange, out of context, manner. But there she went. This customer, under NO provocation, came to me and decided that it would be appropriate and timely to show me her "awkward salmon". Immediately I knew I didn't want to know what ever the "awkward salmon" was so when she asked me...

"Do you want to see my awkward salmon?" I said... "No"

But this particular person, an individual whose BMI rating was above the recommended level (according to BBC Health), bends her mass downward, takes her hand, and starts slapping her thighs. Right thigh, left thigh, right thigh, left thigh, slap, slap, slap, isthishappeningrightnow, slap, slap. I was dumbstruck. It was like watching a car crash, so horrible but you're just transfixed because it was so mind bending that averting your gaze is impossible. All of a sudden, the slapping stopped. I didn't say anything to this girl, who was now looking at me with a facial expression of pure joy, but instead turned directly around and starting looking into the woods. I hoped that maybe I would see a squirrel humping an acorn, or a deer being shot, or maybe even a bear eating someone dear to me BECAUSE all of those things would have been better to look at than this girl slapping river-water soaked thighs in quick succession. I had not finished hoping that the entire episode never happened when I heard this...

"That's not how you do it, this is how you do it!" This girl's brother, another person whose BMI level was above recommended, had to show us all how it was done. I was glad I was looking into the woods. I was glad I was not going to have to watch this whole thing happen again. I was glad that the sun was shining and that I was eating a chicken-bacon-ranch wrap. I was even glad that my shoes were full of rocks because it gave me something else to be uncomfortable about. It was all for naught. Suddenly the unimaginable was happening. He was touching me, very close to things that are politically incorrect to mention on a blog posted on the internet. Places that are illegal to talk about in Germany and China. I was being "awkward salmon-ed", this wasn't happening. If someone took a video of what was happening to me, and posted it on YouTube, it would be removed due to YouTube's community guidelines. This kid, that I didn't even know, was doing this to me and I was being mortified. Why was this happening? What makes him think this is appropriate? Once the episode ended I took a bite of my wrap, sipped some hot chocolate, and calmly walked in the opposite direction of anyone. Once I took a few steps it finally dawned on me what happened and I gagged on my food and I accidentally spit my hot chocolate on a stranger. Luckily the stranger was from France, and that was normal in France, so it was wasn't too bad. (I made the hot chocolate part up) But I really did gag on my wrap.

I look back and see one of my fellow raft guides buckled in half with laughter, I was not laughing. I don't like people touching me. I don't like salmon now. All of a sudden I hate all seafood, all seafood. I hate the sea now.