Toobing

Last weekend, we went toobing, as they spell it at some of the local stands renting giant tire innards. You rent your tube/toob, and a mesh bag, and hop into the river. At three places along this couple-mile stretch of river, there are man-made "chutes" that pump up a little momentum and squirt you down the river a little further.

Well, of course, I was scared to death of these things. I was fighting with myself:
"Surely this can't be too bad. Small children do it."
"Yes, but some small children get hurt too, and their bones are far less brittle than yours."
"It is very unlikely that you'll get hurt."
"Yes, but what if I am terrified? That is bad enough."

I avoid, to an extreme, this kind of scare—the whoosh of the feeling that some, I suppose, call exhilaration. Now this would have been a very safe situation in which to confront that avoidance. But I instead suffered the indignity of walking my tube past the first chute. From the other side, I could see it wasn't really that bad. I went down the second chute involuntarily, cued only by "Lady, turn around, you're going down the chute now."

And the third chute was so mild that I was disappointed. Then we had to float for another hour to the point of pickup. After worrying about being scared, now I was dreading the boredom. I used the current like one of those home swimming machines for a while, swimming to stay in place. Then I gave in and sank into my tube. Finally, we reached the end, marked by a big sign, saying something like, "Get out of the water, now, Fool."

After 20 minutes or so, we boarded an old school bus with speakers blaring a Cajun version of "Yellow Rose of Texas." That's it. It was fun, really. Half the fun for me, I suppose, is whining about it.