S.L.A.C.K.E.R.S. (Sassy Ladies Aboard Canoes Keeping Everyone’s Rebellious Secrets)

Last Friday me & five of my girlfriends went on a float trip at Ozark Outdoors on the Courtouis River outside of Leasburg. We go every year and call it our skip day as we all take off work (by calling in sick) because we don’t want to go on Saturday or Sunday since the rivers are packed on weekends. Used to be we didn’t mind going on weekends because there were plenty of guys, but it seems the guys keep getting younger and it’s just not worth having to deal with the crowds. Besides, only one of us (and I’m not naming names) is a cougar. Also, we don’t really want to work too hard so we go for the shortest trip available. That way we can float at a leisurely pace without having to paddle too much because, after all, our arms might get sore. So we’re at the counter renting our canoes, telling the girl that we want to do a 4-mile float when she sort of glances over at the other girl working and gives her a look. Then she asks if we might consider going on a 5 mile float. We looked at each other and started whining because we didn’t understand why she was asking us this – can’t she see that we don’t want to be tortured? After discussing, we turned around to ask if maybe they have a one mile we could go on. When the other girl leaned over and whispered to us that they just dropped 200 Japanese boys in the river and maybe we would want them a mile ahead of us, we understood, and although we were a little worried about going five miles, we agreed.

We hauled our coolers, chairs and dry containers down to the beach where everything was loaded onto the bus for the trip up-river. We were the only six on the bus and the guy (Tim) had to give us the usual “rules” speech before heading out. We already know all the rules – no glass, no beer-bongs, no shots, no beads, no flashing, etc., etc., etc., - been there, done that, learned lessons and know how to get away with the rules we want to bend. Since I’m a bottle beer drinker, I was very proud of myself that I didn’t bring glass bottles this year, I brought aluminum bottles. Actually, I was bragging and gloating to my friends that I wouldn’t have to hide them and everyone knows that aluminum bottles stay colder than glass bottles. So Tim drives us up-river, talking & flirting the whole five miles. Those country boys go for anything that walks! I was going to have Pat in my canoe, so we loaded it up and got everything situated. I decided to have my first beer since the work was done and I was pretty hot & thirsty. So I grab one of the awesome aluminum bottles out of my cooler, eagerly anticipating my first drink of ice-cold Bud Select. All of a sudden it hit me! Woops – I forgot that aluminum bottles don’t have twist-off caps. I was devastated. I needed a bottle opener and nobody had one. How could I go on a float trip with no beer? Of course we had shots, but I could not imagine floating down the river for hours without a beer. Some of my friends had beer but they had cans and after all the gloating I had done over my aluminum bottles, I didn’t want to mooch off of them. I begged Tim to find me a bottle opener but unfortunately, he didn’t have one and we were on a gravel bar with nothing around. Tim proceeded to show me how to hold the bottle cap against the canoe & hit it downward to pop the cap off – only he couldn’t even do it! Besides that, I didn't want to bruise my hand! Next, he came up with a pocket knife and it took a while, but he finally pried the cap off. In the meantime, Debbie was able to get one off by using the chair mechanism; the only problem was that she lost half the beer in the process. So I had Tim pry off 4 more caps and stuck the opened bottles back into my cooler.

We pushed off & proceeded to have a great day floating down the river, catching a lot of rays, swimming, drinking, laughing and having a great time. We only saw a few fishermen and families along the way so there was no pressure to look like we knew what we were doing. We managed to complete the trip with nobody tipping and (besides a few bruises) getting hurt. We paddled a little more than we wanted but we made it.

One of the girls suggested that next year we just rent the canoes and float around by the gravel bar at the take-out point.