One Of Those Days

The first thing I see this morning is my cell phone. That will become ironic.

***

The alarm (a distorted portion of Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On") I set to go off at 6:30 this morning, and every 15 minutes thereafter, has finally pulled me out of my sleep at 7:15. My uncle will be over in about a half hour for the canoe race. I figure I can sleep another 15 minutes.

***

At about 7:45, I hear the doorbell ring upstairs. I am just hopping out of bed when my uncle comes down the stairs. "Ready to go?" he asks. I'm still in my uniform garb from the restaurant (white dress shirt and black dress pants).

"Let me change my clothes."

***

After helping him load the canoe onto his minivan, we arrive at the launch site in St. Charles. The official title is the 46th Annual Mid-American Canoe & Kayak Race. It's roughly 15 miles on the Fox River, going through Geneva, Batavia, North Aurora, and ending in Aurora. There are more than 300 boats going out and they leave St. Charles in heats of ten. Our number is 253, and when we arrive at 8:30, there's probably 10 heats ahead of us leaving at four-minute intervals.

One team is dressed as the Lone Ranger and Tonto, with a cardboard Silver in the middle of the canoe. Another duo is dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Another pair are pirates. My uncle is wearing his Chicago White Sox T-shirt (again), while I grabbed the first shirt from my dresser without really considering it: A white T-shirt featuring Sammy Sosa under the title "Making History" and "Record Breaker."

I think we make quite the pair.

***

Just before getting our canoe in the water, it is announced that some Naperville resident in a kayak was the first person to cross the finish line. Our math at the time (though I don't think it's correct) was that he finished in 40 minutes.

"We can totally beat that," I say.

***

As the canoes are being lined up alongside the west bank of the river, the woman with the microphone under a nearby tent announces the names of the next ten participants. Occasionally, she'll add some sort of insight like, "And this is her 29th year in this race" or "And it's his ninth birthday today!" It will always be added that there are three ports along the way (first one on the left, second in the middle, and last one on the right) where we'll have to get out unless we feel like going over a dam. And of course, there will be pizza at the end.

So now I've got some incentive to finish this.

***

Because our canoe is third in line for our heat, we get out to a pretty good start. My mother—sitting with my father along the side of the river in St. Charles—yells, "Faster!" Only two kayaks end up passing us before we arrive at the first dam in Geneva. My arms aren't tiring yet, so I assume that's a good sign.

A man with a camcorder is apparently filming each participant as their boat arrives at this first point and must have entirely too much free time. I cannot imagine who would be entertained by person after person pulling up to dock, pulling their boat out of the water, and walking right past him. "Wait, wait—This next part's the guys who said something!"

***

The river is shallow in Geneva, and more than a few times my oar hits the rocks. It's irritating, but we row on toward Batavia—and also through more of the scenery I haven't seen, oh, my entire life. We're passing more casual participants and being passed by the die-hards. I've lost count now, but I'm fascinated by how a father-son duo has synchronized their switch of sides following every eight strokes as they blow right past us.

My uncle ends up losing his "World Champions" White Sox hat while transferring his oar to the other side. We do not go back for it.

"Shoulda' worn yours like mine," I say, eluding to my Florida State University arrowhead cap—turned backwards.

***

In Batavia, we encounter two men with the smallest penises you could possibly imagine.

(I say this not because we saw them, per se; it's just one of those things you kind of know for certain via a person's actions.)

As we struggle to launch from the rocks along the shallow water, I notice our canoe has been turned sideways because of two jocks (again, with very, very small penises) running their boat into ours in their rushed effort to get back on the Fox.

I sincerely hope they drowned.

***

North Aurora could not have arrived soon enough. Passing under one of the bridges, I hear my cousin and her husband yell our names. I don't wave because I'm concentrating on getting this fucking thing over with.

***

And when we arrive at our third port, we are greeted by another fellow with a microphone (basically telling us that, hey, welcome to North Aurora). The sign says there's only four more miles to go.

That's exactly four more than I had hoped for.

***

The final stretch is fairly excruciating. I have no idea where we are, nor when to expect a finish line. The palm of my right hand is turning red because of my favoring of rowing from the left side—rather odd to me, seeing as I'm right-handed.

There is no race, however. Either everyone is ahead of us or behind us—until one of those fucking kayaks comes straming by about a minute from the finish line.

***

When we arrive, there is a large park where various canoes lie on the grass and two long lines are formed at tents. One is for a "goodies bag" and the other for pizza, of course.

I sneak off to have a cigarette before getting in "goodies" line—which amounts to a T-shirt and basically literature about the local cities. Then it's into the longer line for so-so pizza.

I keep checking to see if our time has been posted, seeing as I left my phone in the car.

After hauling the canoe across the street, I help my uncle place it on top of the van. While he's strapping it down, I remove my wallet, cash, and cell phone from the rear seat. I flip open my phone and punch in our semi-official time of two hours, 15 minutes, and 27.8 seconds.

I check my voice mail and opt to save a drunk dial from an editor a few weeks back. (It still makes me laugh.)

And at that moment—my phone disappears.

***

I patted my pockets because I wanted my phone; "Say, Dallas won last night, right? It'd be wise to call the Spanish G.I.B.S. (Girl I'd Been Seeing is, unfortunately, more accurate than Re-Girlfriend) and make a bet—right?"

No. Not without a phone.

Now I'm fucked.

"Your calendar, your iPod—it was all on there," says my uncle as we drive back to Aurora after unloading the canoe.

No, I'm not savvy enough to have an iPod and a cellular phone in the same unit. But, still, the phone is gone. And when it's not in the parking lot when we return, there's no good explanation for how it disappeared.

It's gone all the same, and I have twenty bucks saying that the first person who calls the new phone with no saved numbers is an ex-girlfriend.

UPDATE: About the last line? ... Bingo.

Oh, and 209th place?

Room for improvement ...