Gator Bait

To Beer or not to Beer?

 

Way back when I was a young Redneck, back when I still had all my teeth, a few of us decided we were going to go up to the river and do some Gator hunting. Now Kuntry had never done this before. But the fellers I was with had, so I was putting my life in their hands.
I remember that it was a cloudy night, the weather said we may have some storms rolling in. But we were young so the threat of a little thunder boomer didn't really matter much to us. Everything started out fine, there was four of us. Two guys were in a john boat with a small motor and me and a buddy were in a canoe being toed by said boat... Well turns out that the key to Gator hunting isn't how many gators one can bag... NOPE! The key is how drunk can ya get first..."FOR ME... THIS WAS EASY!"
Ever tried to ride in a tipsy a*s canoe after you've had one to many? Well, the first couple of times ya turn over are just funny, but after about the fourth or fifth it gets kinda ugly. It's plain depressing when ya watch the cooler with all the beer float off into the unknown. Turns out Joe's Dumb-a*s only brought enough gas to get us about ten miles UP river. He didn't think that we would have to make it back. OK! I'LL ADMIT IT... SOMETIMES REDNECKS AIN'T TO BRIGHT! Joe said he planed it that way.... Said he figured we'd just travel up river until we ran out of gas then we'd let the current take us back. OK! No problem, until the sky started lighting up. Here we were DRUNK as could be, 10 miles away from our trucks, outa beer, in a metal canoe in the middle of the worst lightning storm I believe I have ever seen." FOLKS! THIS WAS TRULY ONE OF THEM I WANT MY MAMA MOMENTS!"
"WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!" Joe suggested that we just pull over to a sand bar and get under the canoe until the storm passed. Now I don't know about y'all but climbing underneath a METAL canoe in a lightning storm just didn't seem to smart to me. I did know that we needed to get out of the water and away from the boats, so all four of us ended up huddled together in the middle of a sand bar with one poncho covering us. YEP! Four fellas in their twenties hugging each other whimpering like babies. "THANK GOD NO ONE HAD A CAMERA!" I truly believe that is the night a couple of us found religion. There was a whole lot of promising and praying going on. And ya know what? I really think the Big Guy was listening that night. I decided to take a quick peek from under our poncho and low and behold, like a vision of loveliness there it was. "THE COOLER!THE BEER! WE ARE SAVED!" Out in the middle of the river just like it was delivered strait from the Redneck Gods, was our beer cooler stuck . Suddenly the high winds and the lightning didn't seem that bad. "WE HAD A MISSION. GET THAT COOLER!" If we are going to die tonight we wasn't going to die thirsty.
"OK JOE GO GET IT?"" NOT ME, YOU GO GET IT!" NOPE!......" BUBBA?... NOPE!.... RALPH?.... NOPE!" .."OK.. ONLY ONE THING TO DO HERE. WE NEED THAT COOLER!"...." I GOT IT, ROCK PAPER SCISSORS, LOOSER GETS THE BEER". You'll never guess who lost? DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!
" WE NEED A PLAN, JOE YOU HOLD THE SPOT LIGHT ON ME." "BUBBA, YOU TAKE THE OTHER LIGHT AND SCAN THE SURROUNDINGS JUST IN CASE THERE IS A SNAKE OR SOMETHING ELSE OUT THERE." " RALPH, YOU HOLD THE RIFLE AND IF YOU SEE ANYTHING. I MEAN ANYTHING, SHOOT TO KILL, I'LL JUST SWIM OUT GET IT AND SWIM BACK." " OK! LET'S ROCK!" Yes, we really did talk like that!
Well I made it to the cooler everyone was doing their assigned task." MAN THIS IS GOING AS SMOOTH AS SILK, I'LL JUST SWIM ON BACK AND WE'LL BE DRUNK AGAIN IN NO TIME!"
"WAIT, CHANGE OF PLAN!" " OMG, GATOR, JESUS!!! JESUS!!!!!!!!JESUS!!!!!!!SHOOT HIM RALPH!!!!!!!!SHOOT him! PLEASE!!!!!!JESUS!!!!!! I'M GONE GET ATE!!!!!!!!!! JESUS!"
Now here I was almost on the opposite bank, something extremely large was swimming down the middle of the river. "RALPH! SHOOT THE DAMN THING!" " I CAN'T, I MIGHT SHOOT YOU!"......" I DON"T CARE, SHOOT THE DAMN THING!" " JESUS!!!!!!!!!!!GOD!!!!!PLEASE GIVE ME SPEED", " MAKE ME AN OLYMPIC SWIMMER I WILL BE GOOD FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, JUST PLEASE DON'T LET THAT THING EAT ME!"! Only one thing to do, make a mad dash for the other shore. Whatever is swimming my way hasn't changed it's coarse... Maybe it didn't even see me? So I swam, started out doing OK, then I came to a sudden stop. I forgot that I had tied the cooler to a rope around my waste. I had forgotten that the rope wasn't long enough to make it all the way to the other bank. So Here I am... In the middle of the river.. Treading water.... swallowing water... choking and gaging, trying to untie this blasted knot. All the while this big a*s gator is getting closer and closer......Hell! I think I pissed my pants.....Didn't really matter.... I was fixing to get eaten anyways......"I CAN'T LOOOOOOK!" I turned my back on the beast franticly trying to untie that damn knot. Then I heard uncontrollable laughter coming from the sand bar.......HMMMMMMM? I'm about to DIE!!!! And my buddies was laughing at me..... SOME FRIENDS THEY WAS. Folks I really think I was crying about this time,'.HEY DUDE!' ' WTF YOU WANT?" " LOOK BEHIND YOU." " WHY?" " JUST LOOK BEHIND YOU!" "IT'S A LOG!" Now I thought I may have pissed my pants but I didn't think I did the other so I turned slowly around to meet my fate........IT WAS A FREAKING LOG! NOT A GATOR, JESUS SAVED ME! HE TURNED THAT GATOR INTO A BIG OLE LOG! " Thanks Big Guy"...." I owe ya one.".....
Well I made it to the sand bar with the cooler in toe..... The storm let up enough so we could build a small fire... We ended up having one of the best camping trips I can remember....... Never did see any Gators... Not that I minded........Now and then I still run into the other guys from time to time..... They can't help but remind me about the time that log almost ate me.......And I am very quick to remind them just who saved the beer that night.
Y'ALL WEAR YA SMILES!!! YOUR NAKED WITHOUT UM! kuntry

Reviews

[Sara Muschweck]

i lived in the south for many years, the way you write is exactly the way they talked, i love it... the story itself was so funny i laughed the entire time, (sorry to laugh at your misfortune) but that was funny... risking life and limb for the beer, yep....great write.