The Trouble With the Truck

This here's a little story about a series of events that took place last night.  To better understand the story, you may need to know that Kendall has a love-hate relationship with his truck.  Well, maybe it's more of a necessity-hate relationship.  He needs the truck, but doesn't like it.  (It is aqua with a purple stripe, after all.)  I think his reasons for not liking it run more along the lines of the 4-wheel drive not working and it not being big enough for the whole family and things like that.  Oh yeah, and last week he made a difficult decision to put a bit more than $1000 into it to get the dying clutch repaired.  He would have much preferred a new truck, but financially, this made more sense for this point in our lives. 

I actually got Kendall to do a guest post by offering to type while he talked.  So here is our co-authored post ( And I took the liberty of adding my comments in italics- It is my blog, after all.):

Someone wanted to borrow the pontoon boat.  Since the pontoons have slow leaks, we wanted to pull it out and drain them, which requires putting it on the trailer and pulling it out of the water.  Now you'll have to understand that my truck isn't the springiest chicken.  It tends to roll even when it's parked in gear.  I backed the trailer into the water to load the pontoon boat up, knowing my fickle truck.  I pushed in my parking brake as far as I could, all the while knowing it doesn't work.  It seems like the right thing to do when you have a truck that rolls.  I tentatively let off the brake and it held it's ground deceptively. 

I then proceeded to load the boat on the trailer as Karen and Lydia looked on from their perch on the boat.  I didn't just LOOK ON.  I was very helpful in getting the trailer correctly aligned under the boat. 

Suddenly the truck lurched.  All of the following happened in the matter of a few seconds, but I will put it into slow motion for you:  I sprung from the boat to the dock in one flying leap.  It was 20 feet away.  No it wasn't.  I frantically reached for the passenger door as the truck slowly rolled past me standing there on the dock.  It was locked.  My question is "Why was it locked?"  We're in Red Lake. At the boat launch.  I ran around the front of the truck and into the water on the other side, not even stopping to take the phone out of my pocket. That fact alone is pretty amazing.  

Fortunately, the driver's side was unlocked.  I flung the door open and jumped into the truck along with a wave of water.  I shoved my foot deep into the brake pedal, stopping the truck.  Wishing for my snorkel, I decided to try starting the truck.  My truck was nearly lost, but I realized that I had an obligation to my wife and daughter who were naive to the peril they were in. Thank you for your loving sense of obligation.  And I wasn't so naive- I just didn't think about getting off the boat at the time. The boat was attached to the truck, which was quickly becoming an oversized anchor.  They were sitting on the boat, idly watching the show. Idly?!  I anxiously motioned them off the boat and on to the dock.  I nervously turned the key and listened as my truck sputtered.  Things weren't looking good.  I tried again.  This time it coughed and started blowing bubbles from the muffler, which was well under water.  Encouraged by this new sign of life, I quickly let off the brake and gave it the gas.  The truck slowly crept out of the water, dragging the trailer and the boat with it.  Somehow the boat ended up on the trailer, even though it had been drifting off to the side during the whole fiasco.  I soggily proceeded to drain the pontoons with mixed emotions of gratitude and hatred disappointment.  The truck had survived.