1999
Adventures With Uncle Wally (Dry Suit)
by Uncle Wally
Now, we all know we should keep our noses out of other people's business, even if we don't always manage to do it. Same goes for other people's stuff, of course. But temptation can be a terrible thing to try to resist.
'Bout this time of year, not so far back, my friend George talked me into a late-season run on the St. Louis. It was cold. It was REAL cold. It wasn't quite cold enough for the water to freeze into icicles on the edges of the paddle blades between strokes but if we'd stayed out another hour longer, it probably woulda been. Can't remember whether or not it was fun. I guess the brain really does slow down considerably when bordering on hypothermia.
Ol' George didn't seem to mind the cold one bit. In fact, he looked downright cozy inside his fancy, new dry suit. Armor for the whitewater knight. He had so many layers of polypropylene and pile underneath it, I'm not sure how he managed to fasten his PFD. He looked a little like a kid in new snowpants and parka, so bundled up he could hardly move. But he was not cold. He looked positively toasty.
I, on the other hand, was suffering from a form of thermal trade deficit. I was manufacturing and exporting heat to the universe at large without receiving payment in any form of currency that I could use. I was shivering inside my wetsuit and damp pile under a paddling jacket. Before we were halfway done, I had convinced myself my fingers were gonna freeze in place, curled around the paddle shaft. I suppose I should count it a blessing it was a calm day. Wind comin' across the reservoir on the way out is misery enough without havin' to factor in wind chill.
When we got to the outpost, George changed into the dry clothes he had stashed in my car. My fingers were still too stiff to deal with buttons and zippers and such. But they could still curl around a steering wheel tightly enough for me to drive. So I cranked up the car heater to high driver-defrost and drove shuttle, gradually melting into a puddle in the driver's seat while George rode with his head virtually out the window like some big, happy Malamute.
It wasn't 'til much later that night, after I'd gotten home, that I realized that George had left his gear bag in my car at the end of that shuttle. But there it was, stuffed to bursting with wet, sweaty, expensive clothing. Now, I must say that the same get-up that had inspired such envy in me a few hours before filled me with entirely different emotions now. At the end of a long, hard day's paddle, a fella sometimes doesn't even wanna touch his own stuff, much less somebody else's. But I wasn't gonna be seein' George for who-knows-how-long. So that gear bag was a little like a baby left in a basket on the doorstep: I had to do SOMETHING with it. Or did I?
For a time, I mentally wandered down some paths of cruel speculation. What would happen to a tightly-packed wad of polypropylene and pile, inextricably tangled with an impervious dry suit and other oddments, if left to ferment in the corner of a warm basement for a few days? Or weeks? Or all winter long? What color would it turn? Would an assortment of fuzzy, simple life forms colonize it? Would the EPA eventually list my basement as a hazardous waste sight and send a crew in protective clothing to remove it? What would it smell like?
That last question stopped me in my mental tracks. This was, after all, MY home-sweet-home we were thinkin' about here. So I decided to muster the decency to hang up George's wet stuff in the garage to dry out. It was the least I could do. And I certainly wasn't gonna do any more than that.
It was about a week later, late one night as I walked through my garage-turned-boathouse-and-closet and thought about how nice it would be to some day get my car back in there, that I noticed the dry suit again. A little snow was driftin' lazily down outside and the very thought of paddling made me shiver. I remembered how cozy George had looked in that dry suit, even in the frigid embrace of the St. Louis River. I wondered what it might be like to be warm while paddling in November in Minnesota. And I wondered if George's dry suit might fit me. George and I were more or less the same size. The dry suit no longer looked, felt, or smelled as evil as it had a few days before. So I took it in the house to try it on for size.
As I slithered into it, I began to suspect that maybe I had started to outclass George a bit in the size department. The fit was a bit snug. But it was still pretty comfy. And was it ever warm! I broke into a sweat just tryin' to pull it on. Definitely no problem with heat retention here. I could imagine bein' warm in this thing even paddling into the icy grip of winter. I could also imagine being overcome by heat exhaustion right there in my own, centrally heated living room. I was already too hot. It was time to end the fashion show and doff the borrowed dry suit. Easier said than done.
Now, I've had to wait at a put-in or two while some guy wriggled slowly and possibly painfully into his dry suit. But not bein' the kind of guy who stands around watchin' while other folks get undressed, I had no idea what a struggle it could be to get back outta one. Man! I couldn't even get one arm free. I needed a valet. But I didn't even have a roommate to call on in my hour of need. My neighbors were all non-paddlers who already regarded me with that distant and half-fearful deference usually reserved for the mentally unstable. Couldn'ta asked them for help even if they had still been awake, which they weren't. Some of my paddling buddies woulda still been up but they never woulda let me live this down. Dial 911? Oh boy! I could see the headlines now: FIREFIGHTERS USE JAWS-OF-LIFE TO FREE MAN FROM FRIEND'S CLOTHES. Nah! I had to get outta this jam by myself.
Still, it wasn't gonna be easy. There really oughta be a manufacturer's warning label in these things: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. Jerking sweaty, clammy appendages through too-tight latex gaskets was no small feat. And no matter how I twisted and contorted, I couldn't seem to get an arm to reemerge through even the high side of the diagonal chest zipper. In a rising panic, I yanked harder and harder at the trapped arm. But all I got for my pains was a sudden pain . . . in my hyperextended right shoulder. Great! I wasn't about to become the first paddler to dislocate a shoulder just tryin' to get undressed. It's not the sort of thing a fella wants to become famous for. I had to calm down.
I went out and sat in the snow on the back step to try to cool off body and soul. It was a peaceful, gentle snowfall and it eventually worked its calming magic on me both physically and mentally. Then, working slowly and methodically, I finally managed to wriggle my way, inch by inch, back out of George's dry suit. I felt a little like a snake shedding its skin. But eventually I was free again. I had never before been so happy to feel cold.
Well, I had to hang George's dry suit back up in the garage to dry out again. But this time, when it was dry, I packed it and all his other stuff in a big box and mailed it to him. It was worth the postage just to be rid of it.
So, take some advice from the painful, personal experience file: you can meddle all you like in other people's affairs, but stay outta their stuff, whether you think it might fit you or not. Remember that walkin' a mile in another man's shoes is far less dangerous than tryin' to paddle a mile in another man's dry suit. If the shoe doesn't fit, at least you'll still be able to get it off.
* * * * *
Well, 'til next time, keep your paddle wet. And keep in touch. Drop me a line c/o Mickey McBride, 8191 Belden Blvd., Cottage Grove MN 55106 or mickeymcb@worldnet.att.net. Let me know if you've ever led yourself (or anyone else, for that matter) inextricably into temptation. Remember, Uncle Wally promises to 1) tell the truth so no one would ever believe it anyway and 2) never reveal your true identity to anyone, not even the paramedics at your local fire station.
