Dave called and said, "Let's party out at the lake, Sam'll get his dad's boat, we'll find some girls, and some beer and stuff, and have fun in the sun on the lake". I said, "OK".
It sounded like fun, and it was. Dave drove by and picked me up, and pretty soon we're a party, with Sue and Dave and Sam and Janie, and me, in a two-car convoy to the river. I'm decidedly a fifth wheel this day. I was OK with that; I'd decided to take a trip, and have fun.
An hour later we arrived at the lake, at the boat storage.
Sam went to the manager to get the key to open the door to the boat storage. The manager asked, "Do you have your Dad's permission?" Sam lied. Meanwhile, I borrowed Dave's car, actually his Mom's car, a pretty yellow Camaro, and cut donuts in the parking lot. Dave was pissed at me for doing that, something about gravel chipping the paint.
So, we got the boat hooked to the car, and rode off to the boat ramp, the 5 of us. Tom backed the boat in, Dave parked the car, and we all got in the boat. I'm sitting all the way in back, (I'm pretty well off by now, heh), and the other guys, and the gals, are in the front. Motor's gunned up, and we cruise into the lake.
Sitting in the back, after a while, I noticed the boat seemed a little lower in the water, and said, "Hey, I think the boat's sinking, a little?" I said this a couple times in the next ten minutes, and was assured that I was imagining things-- "You're too high, ha-ha".
They'd have none of it, and were too busy with the girls to even want to take notice. Sam put the engine on troll, and they fooled around some more while I watched, and watched, and then noticed some sloshing around my feet. This time I said, " There's water back here, the boat's sinking."
Sam said "5#!t, I forgot to put the plug in!" I said, "Well, where is it?" He said, "It's attached to a cord hanging off the motor." I said "We'd better put it in, the boat's sinking." He said "Would you do that?" The motor was trolling. I thought about the spinning propeller blade, and said, "If you want me to jump in and look around for the plug, turn it off."
Sam turned off the motor. That was the second mistake. I jumped off and looked around for the plug, somewhere near the engine at the back, and lo and behold I found a cord, with nothing on the end!
I told Sam the plug probably got cut off by the propeller. I said, "Why don't we find something else to plug the hole?"
Everyone else got the idea that we could start the motor, run the boat fast, it would drain. I got back in the boat and Sam tried starting the motor. The motor wouldn't start.
That was probably something to do with all the water leaking in near the fuel supply. After wasting more time, all logic was gone. There was one life preserver and one oar, and we decided to start paddling for the shore. With an oar on one side, and many hands on the other side, we made some progress, but the boat got lower, and lower, in the water. Finally we came within 100 yards of shore, nowhere near a dock or ramp, and the boat was really, really low in the water. I was wondering how long would it float, it was really at the edge now. I finally said, "Look, if I get out there will be less weight, OK?". No one said anything, so I jumped off, and swam to shore. A couple minutes later, I was climbing up the bank, and turned around to see the others abandon ship. As they were swimming to shore, the boat sank, glug, glug, glug.
The best memory from the trip was sleeping in blankets on top of the cars that night, then waking up and seeing the Perseid meteor shower -- a very good year. I mentioned the shooting stars. Around this time, one of the girls seemed to think I'd be interested in her feet, for some reason.