If it Floats

When your children ask you what you want for Father's Day this year, it's time to cast an adoring gaze on their sweet and innocent faces and say: "Kids, when I see the unconditional love I get from my own family, I realize I have absolutely everything a man could want in this world. That, and a boat, if you can swing it."

Let's face it, unconditional love is a wonderful thing, but it can't go 45 knots on the open ocean while the wind whips at your receding hairline and the salt spray rips your contacts right out of your face as you are reminded of freedoms you recklessly abused in your youth.

And neither can a necktie.

There is nothing like a boat. Not just any boat, and certainly not a boat with sails. Things that are powered by wind are dangerous--anyone who has been to a frat party knows this for a fact.

Big Motors
No, the boat has to have an motor, a big motor, maybe two, that are annoyingly loud and burn more fossil fuel in an hour than a Prius does in a year. It has to be a boat fitted with swivel chairs where you can sit and hook large denizens of the deep that usually turn out to be other guy's line. It has to be a boat your accountant will counsel against buying. And your lawyer, for that matter. It has to be a testosterone-driven boat.

Not that you'd expect your children to buy a boat like that. But you would expect a reaction from your wife, who is standing in the background, ready to pick up clues about what you want for Father's Day. And you'll get it, after the kids are in bed.

"What's this about a boat?" she'll ask. (Translation: Forget the boat.)

"Oh, nothing, just joshing the kids." (Translation: Please, please, please?)

"No, you're not just joshing. You middle-aged men could live in the Kalahari Desert and you'd still want a boat." (Translation: I could have married Richard Smedley. He's a doctor now.)

"No, really, I don't want a boat." (Translation: How about a small boat? And who's middle-aged?)

"Besides, what do you know about boats?" (Translation: A fence post knows more about boats than you do.)

Connecticut River
She would be right, of course. In my case, I grew up in Hartford, where the only place to operate a boat was the Connecticut River. This was back in the days when the river smelled like Times Square on a summer day and oozed forth alien life forms and talk-show hosts. You wouldn't even think of putting a boat in the river back then for fear of falling into the water and worrying that years later you'd produce children that look like Edward Scissorhands. Hence, no one had a boat.

But that was then. Now, I'm a grown-up guy, and as I read in the paper recently, I am apparently at the mercy of my hormones. In fact, I've been told that whenever I drive past a boatyard my nostrils flare and I emit simian-like grunts from beneath my solar plexus. My guess is that deep in the collective unconscious of modern man, we are still, at heart, hunters and gatherers. Of boats.

So when I first thought about buying a boat, I said to myself, "The only way we can do this is if I convince my wife that it will be a safe and wholesome family activity." (Translation: Lie.)

Quiz
I bought some boating safety books and placed them strategically around the house, making sure to advance the bookmarks every couple of days just to let her know I was on top of things. These were genuinely interesting and helpful books, and gave information in quiz-like formats, such as:

A. The word "starboard" refers to
1. the left side of the boat when you are facing "fore"
2. the left side of the boat when you are facing "aft"
3. what is "left" of the boat "before" and "after" you have run it into the pilings

B. When approaching another boat in the harbor, the right-of-way goes to
1. the larger boat
2. the armed drug-smugglers
3. babes

C. A "nautical mile" is
1. 6,076 feet
2. sort of like a mile, but wet
3. another one of life's mysteries

If you answered 1, 2, or 3 for the above, you deserve a boat for Father's Day. In fact, I'll just bet you'll get--a necktie.

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