When it is too pretty a weekend to stay inside, too hot to work outside, you have a new-to-you motor home, and sank a small fortune into a pontoon boat with all the toys, what you do is call up your best friends and neighbors and ask them to go camping and boating with you. 

Audrey and I make up the food, Phillip (my husband) and Randy fuel the vehicles and off we go to our local resort area on Kentucky Lake.  Early Friday afternoon we set up camp and put the boat in the water, cook out, and play some Jimmy Buffet on the stereo to set the mood for the beginning of summer.  Couldn’t be more perfect, right?  Little did we know of what the morrow would bring . . .

Saturday morning we cooked a big breakfast, packed some beer, water, and snacks, and headed for the pontoon boat.  We found a nice little quiet cove, threw the noodles in the water, and played like children.  After awhile, we dug out the intertubes and went over all the rules and signals since Randy and Audrey had never been tubing before.  I’d say they were excited about it.
 

Audrey and I went first.  Phillip, our captain, pulled us all around the cove while Audrey got used to it.  When we tired, it was Randy’s turn to go next.  Audrey and I played lookout.

Now Randy’s got a head full of salt and pepper hair, very white teeth, and is well over six feet tall.  Audrey and I laughed and laughed at how big his smile was and that all you could see were his white teeth and long legs up in the air through the water sprays.  After learning the signals for going faster, us lookouts told the captain to speed it up.  He took a spill or two and then was ready to get back on the boat.
 

While blowing up a different tube, Randy gazed around and said, “This is just like a dream.”  Audrey and I both thought he was just having a great time.  After a few minutes, he said it again, this time with a vacant look in his eyes.  We still didn’t pay that much attention to him and after another intertube was blown up; we asked him if he wanted to try it.  He said okay.  Back in the water he went and the captain pulled him round and round.  After he wiped out, we pulled him back in the boat.(click on Read More below for the whole story)<!--pagebreak-->

We asked him how did he like his ride and he didn’t know what we were talking about. He pointed to the first intertubes and asked if he rode that.  We told him yes, and that it looked like he was having a great time and that all we could see were his teeth.  He scratched his head and said, “I’ve got a bad case of CRS.”  Audrey had to translate:  Can’t Remember S**t.  THIS time we paid attention to him. Don’t you remember riding that tube?  No.  Do you remember riding this tube?  No.  After asking him several more questions, he answered that his name was Randy, it was the year two thousand and something and someone named Clinton was president.  (It was 2007 and Bush is president!)  Again, he kept scratching his head saying he had a bad case of CRS.
 

Uh oh, it was time to head back to the campsite.  All the while, we peppered him with questions.  He knew whom Phillip and I was but couldn’t remember our names.  He kept asking his wife if he was retired . . . that was a big laugh since he is only in his 50s.  Audrey kept telling him he wasn’t retired.  When we got back to the campsite, he wanted to know who had the motor home and “am I retired?”  We asked him don’t you remember sleeping there last night?  No, he didn’t, but “am I retired?”  “I have a bad case of CRS.” 

While I got some lunch together Phillip and Audrey pointed him toward the bathhouse so he could use the restroom.  None of us remembered that it had two doors.  After a while, I asked where Randy was and Phillip and Audrey had lost him so they took off in different directions looking for him.  He was found wandering around asking strangers if they knew him!  Back at the motor home, Audrey asked him what he wanted to eat for lunch and laid out all his choices.  Since he didn’t answer, I suggested Audrey fix him a plate and just tell him to eat it, which he did, while we all discussed the fact that he’s got amnesia and whether or not we needed to take him to the emergency room.  Audrey didn’t want to “ruin the weekend” so we decided just to keep a good watch on him!  If he needed to go back to the bathhouse, Phillip had to go with him.  We concluded that his brain was too small for his skull and he had “shaken (Audrey’s) baby syndrome!”

Later on in the evening, he remembered that it was 2007, that Bush was president, but that he never slept in the motor home, had never been intertubing before, and hadn’t eaten lunch, nor had met every camper on the other side of the bath house.  He really wanted to be retired and still had a bad case of CRS!

The next day Audrey suggested he go intertubing again because it was a shame he couldn’t remember what a good time he had the day before.  Needless to say, the captain pulled him with a little less enthusiasm.  It has become a mantra now, after everyone gets pulled:  Do you know what year it is?  Do you know who the president is?  Do you know that you ARE NOT retired yet?  And can you remember s**t? 


By: T. Pilcher