‘Boat Life’ Excerpt from living on Trickster 2008

I found this excerpt titled “Boat Life” and thought I would share it. A little taste of living on an old boat on the river.
November 17, 2008
Tonight was a quiet night- the water line did not burst and flood the bilges- there were no wires to short out and melt the bilge pump switch – cats (to my knowledge) did not fall in the river – boiling hot water hoses filled with coolant did not explode and I was not covered with hot sticky antifreeze – no light panels mysteriously came unglued and fell upon my head – the boat is actually warm – I haven’t seen a snake inside instead – I have propane to cook with – no dead, half eaten, mice around -yep things are looking up. Funny to hear that all the above mentioned things have happened and probably within the last two weeks! Funny for you that is!! But don’t get me wrong, boat life isn’t all bad!
November 18, 2008
Spoke too soon. Far too soon. It’s a Thursday. I am supposed to be meeting Becca – we have been trying to get together for months. At this point I think we may be jinxed. But that is neither here nor there. My spidey senses must have been tingling tonight though. Or I was just bored at work… instead of going straight to see Becca I left a bit early to come home first – you know check up on the cats. I open the hatch – that’s funny, I think, the moon is reflecting off the floors (it was a very bright moon). Hmmmm I didn’t think the floors could be that shiny; but there is no way there could be that much water in there – or could there be?
…lights on…shit…. fumbling for rain boots -floating in water
Pull on boots…swish though water… taste it- definitely fresh…
Shaking…water coming in over tops of boots…running out to turn off tap
Call Kolby ‘come home NOW’…buckets, buckets, buckets… is the water going down?…it’s not river water is it?…no, no it’s going down. Bend, scoop, dump. Bend, scoop, dump…bend, scoop dump… repeated about 100x.

Everything below knee level was wet. All the food was ruined. Everything in the lockers had to be removed and dried. Somehow our new beautiful floors are o.k.. 4 hours later we finish. Exhausted we ran away to Dairy Queen for some soul warming calories.