 So, I left off at the moment that Lindsay and I were blindly going upstream to our deaths...kind of like salmon... spawning salmon...about to be munched on by bears…or caught by creepy flannelled guys named Zeke who make bad, rubbery boot fashion choices. The point is that we were going to die. Stupidly.
Anyway! As I shook off my soon to be diseased foot, still soaking from its submersion into the apparently staph infested waters of Barton Springs, it became glaringly clear that Lindsay could not steer our canoe.
How, you ask?
Well, peeking through the glare from the sunshiny water, I noticed the zigging and the zagging. Lots of it. We were moving in quite an unnatural canoeing path that included moving in circles at the same time as floating upside down and sideways. In a canoe. I don’t know how this is possible, but that’s how it happened and I’m sticking to my story.
At one point I could see the infamous ducks of Barton Springs take a break from attacking innocent tourists for bread, point and laugh, in their uppity, quacky duck laughs at our very disorganized rowing and steering attempts to even get away from the bank and down to the lake.
I wasn’t sure at first as to why we seemed to flail about the Springs rather than glide on the water like a good canoe duo should. Maybe it was the fact that Lindsay was distracted by her tale, her tale of my impending death or maybe she couldn’t handle a paddle or maybe both. I had the feeling that my incessant babbling about possible amputation of my wet foot wasn’t helping.
Lindsay, who is just as cool as can be began her story…”You know, it was my turn to cook for the house last night and I am so glad that I don’t have to cook for 25 people anymore. We made a great meal, with lots of vegetables and grains, everything was organic (Look out for that duck!) and I used nothing but whole foods but everyone started complaining that we didn’t offer (We’re going in circles, why are we going in circles?) them enough protein in the meal. I mean, really! (Did we just ram that boat with those gangsta looking people on it?) They started yelling at me about the protein.”
I was imagining the great hippie revolt at the co-op, as I tried desperately to avoid the kayak in front of us with the father and young son paddling furiously to get out of our path and avoid their ultimate demise. I could just see the patchouli-soaked dread locks and mala beads flying as each dissatisfied person chewed on their kale and spelt bread, chanting in protest over the lack of protein in this home cooked meal. I would have been protesting about the fact that I was eating kale, but that’s just me.
“Why didn’t you add tofu or something?” I asked innocently as I paddled, shamefully ignorant and ever closer to Town Lake...lake of hurricane force winds.
“Because! That stuff is deadly! It will kill you!” she urgently insisted and I thought I saw her head spin around. And on she went, rather passionately telling me of the dangers of soy, that I am consuming deadly poison and feeding it to my children. Never mind that we had just rammed into a canoe holding a family of chain smokers wearing 200 pounds of bling and a 9mm, I was eating soy beans and they were going to eat my soul.
I didn’t know that the "process" of processing soy was as disgusting as it actually turns out to be according to my delightful Lindsay. It turns out that my face may melt off and my insides, once thought to be close to extinction, are now actually dead. Yes, my beautiful girlfriend, as you have always suspected, I am dead inside. But it was the tofu that did it.
As we approached Town Lake, after what seemed like hours of veering away from every inch of bank on the Springs, running into many an innocent child, the freeway and passer by, I realized that what we were about to approach was going to ruin my fantastic float and row excursion even more than my germ ridden shoe and my inevitable death by tofu. What looked like 20 foot waves were rolling over the surface of the very windy water as we spastically glided past the protective banks of the springs and onto Town Lake…lake of my latest and largest freak-out ever.
Oh, yes, this was going to kill me.
We floated out, onto the lake and the wind hit our little canoe and we started rocketing, yes, rocketing downwind at, oh, I’d say about 900 miles an hour. I instantly began preparing counter measures which included paddling and screaming like a little girl.
“Lindsay! Listen, I really don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but you seriously can NOT steer this canoe and now I am going to force you to move to the front. And what are you talking about with tofu? I love tofu and I cannot believe that you are telling me that it is lethal! Why? Why did you tell me this?”
“Are you serious? Carol, get control of yourself. Now look, we can talk about alternative protein sources later! Right now I am worried that if you make me move that the boat will capsize and then…” said Lindsay but, at that moment, a bird flying by was caught by a gust of wind and was thrown into my hair where it was flailing and struggling for its life in a tangled, chirping mass. She stood there, staring at me in disbelief, realized that we were on a lake with a boat that was moving quickly towards Cuba, I was uncovering the lie of my “healthy” vegetarianism and sometimes, sometimes people do kill the messenger, so she stopped talking and started moving.
I shimmied and tottered to the back of the canoe as Lindsay, with all of her strength, began paddling forward and we began a long and treacherous trek back to the safety of Barton Springs. I paddled and paddled with my stickly arms of little use and steered like a crazed Ishmael as I screamed something about Macrobiotics and Miso soup for what felt like 3 days but turned out to actually be 8 minutes.
“Get off of this lake of doom and stop eating tofu!” I screamed, warning the others along the way to turn back, surely their death was awaiting them. The look of me paddling hysterically, wild eyed and with a struggling bird in my hair was probably what really got them to turn around.
Finally, we made it off of the lake, back into calm waters, and I realized, as I fished the bird out of my hair and Lindsay rammed us into the cement freeway bridge poles one more time, that I had just escaped certain death. No, not death from the gale force winds or crashing waves on the lake which certainly could have killed me, not from the bacterial infection that I knew was quickly spreading up from my foot and into my vital organs or even the patchouli death cloud circling above the head of our hippie paddle peddler.
I was saved, saved by Lindsay from my own ignorance and death…by tofu.
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Carol Standard Time 
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