GIDDY LIKE SCHOOL GIRLS

The heart pounding thrill of surging down a class 5 rapid… The raft barely holding together as it pounds against boulders… Paddles slapping the water with rhythmic perfection… Closing in on death with every turn…

This story is the polar opposite of that.

Roll mental camera…

The picture you see above was the mental image I had of what I was to undertake. A few years ago my brother-in-law put together a men’s weekend for all the guys in our family. It was to be a white water adventure, as he put it. We all were giddy like school girls as we drove the last few miles to the river (I know, scary sight). When we arrived we found that the raging river of death had been reduced to trickle that even a man with a prostate condition wouldn’t have been proud of. The corps of engineers had closed the dam upstream, evil doers thwarting our chance at river supremacy.

So what started as a testosterone filled regression to primordial idiocy, ended up being a slow float down a lazy river. That might even be an overstatement. We actually ended up carrying the raft over rocks and spots in the river where the water wasn’t deep enough. All manhood lost… Tarzan like grunts reduced to whimpers.

Have you ever had one of those days that fell so short of what you expected it depressed you? I had one of those days 2 weeks ago MCing in Toon Town. It didn’t seem to matter what I did, the kids just weren’t responding. I felt like a comic telling knock knock jokes. Crickets chirping. I always have such high hopes for what that time will bring and when it misses the mark it is a hard pill to swallow. Thank God this week was different. I kept my hopes high and Easter brought a ton of new kids and the place was rocking. I had never seen so much energy.

When was the last time reality didn’t measure up to the vision of grandeur in your head?

Do your hopes stay high like mine even when the situation doesn't measure up?

Keep your hopes high because the rapids in life are way more fun.