a girl, a house on the beach, and a one-way ticket...a prelude to "The Lake, A Cautionary Tale for Boys Everywhere"

A few days ago I was happy to be invited to go boating, as this is what people here do in early June, standing in notable contrast to thinking about maybe just maybe hanging up the ice-skates for the season, which is what people in Ohio do in early June. The people who invited me were people I didn't know, as these kind of people--at the time--were the only kind of people here.

My mother and my more sensible friends were beside themselves with worry when I told them about my plans, and I believe ineffective arguments involving words like "Van Der Sloot" were built on several different occasions.

Why? Because(mom)the captain was an Ohio boy and thus not Van duh Sloot. And and! (mom) the last time I was on a boat with an Ohio boy he TOTALLY didn't strangle me.* Not even when our boat broke down an hour before dark and I had to swim to shore for help because how was I supposed to know that no one ever replaced the old anchor that fell off the summer before (little brother) or that the boat was headed straight for the rocks due to the dangerously high winds or the exact quadrant of our exact location (Ms. Not So Helpful Coast Guard lady)? I mean, who do you think I am? Amelia flying Earhart**?

Sorry. Ahem. My point is I explained to my mother and more sensible friends that as a girl you are in good hands with an Ohio boy,*** even one you don't know and even on a boat.

As a tangent to my recent shout out to Ohio boys, I'm going to go ahead and say it: while it's true that as women we are subject to all sorts of inequities**** and while it is true that as women we are raised to be afraid of the dark, parking garages, and nice men offering us ice cream cones and ponies at the park, we rarely if ever have to deal with being too easily pegged as some sort of pervert.

We, as women, rarely have to think about our proximity to playgrounds as coming across as lewd or be concerned with a new boy thinking we are potential Texas Chainsaw Massacre girl if we ask him to go for a walk with us alone. So, it is in this vein that yet again I'm going to help the boys out in my next post with a lesson inspired by a story I heard not so long ago involving an Ohio girl, an Ohio boy, and a lake.

*he did not strangle me, though after nearly three hours in the cold water while I walked through all kind of hill and dale and sticky thorns to get help and after a close and no doubt chilly brush with hypothermia, he certainly--I know--considered it.

**case in point

***unless his name is Jeffery Dahmer, Anthony Sowell, Gary or Thaddeus Lewingdon (I'm going to stop here as the list of serial killers from Ohio is actually disturbingly long and well, now, I'm feeling a little nauseated. However, this new tidbit of information is not lost on me and is certainly being classified as yet another pro! to not returning to Ohio)

****I'm currently stewing over the latest one that I've observed: now not only should a woman look like she doesn't eat steak and dessert but she actually should look like she doesn't eat steak and dessert while simultaneously eating steak and dessert so that she doesn't offend her date's sensibilities with any hint of dietary neuroticism. Right.

Next Post: "The Lake, A Cautionary Tale for Boys Everywhere"