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Canoe Livery Drop Off Interrupted before/after Not sure why I'm writing here right now. Maybe I needed to prime the pump. I have to write a complaint and do other related stuff. I'm just currently not enjoying this gig. And I'm getting no help from anyone. And anyone that offers help subsequently disappears. I suppose I could talk about the canoe trip. It was a quick decision. I almost didn't go. After all, the usual canoe livery was going to be sold that very day, and without them, some of my shenanigans just would not be nearly as feasible. Because typically the guy that runs that canoe livery just takes our money and does not give a fuck. He puts me and my buddy on the river and is gone. Basically, then we tie up at his floating dock and he sorts it out later. I surmised at one point he probably just took the cash and fucked off to the bar. He stopped drinking, as we learned at one point, but you could readily see the wear and tear it had had on him physically. The only thing I suspect he was aware of was the six inches in front of his face. Anyway, the past few years we go canoeing early, then listen to baseball and float about on the lake, jumping into the water in a semi-ritual that I can only describe as being reborn. I do believe I described it earlier...jumping into bracing calm waters, the smell of the northern woods, cedars, tanins...fresh water, like being reborn as you emerge, literally everything drops away from you and you are forced without a doubt to deal with the present. So we were doing the canoe thing last year, maybe two years ago, and the canoe livery guy hadn't hired any help. He took our money and was set to drop us off. We loaded our rented equipment, canoe and everything. He just drove. Nobody argued and we took care of our selves. As a result, if we had some weird habits and liked to stay on the river until really late, nobody said anything. This one time a guy cut him off in the parking lot. Apparently a friend. --I'm having deja vu here...have I described this in the past?-- "Hey, how's it going?" "Alright. Just gotta' drop these guys off..." the canoe livery owner stated. "Hey, we should hang out. Get a drink." "I don't drink anymore. I gotta' get going." The interloper would not let him leave. "Hey, look, I got some news from the doctor." At this point, I was riding shotgun, bearing witness to the events. "Oh," canoe livery says. "Yeah." A pause hung in the air, like a rancid fart. "It's pretty bad." says interloper." "Oh." Another long pause. In the distance, a bird trilled in the white pines surrounding us. "Its stage four cancer. Terminal." "Oh." said canoe livery, completely unconcerned. I knew the guy didn't give two shits, but this was a new level of zero-fuckery. "I don't have much time left to live. Maybe a few months." "Oh." "We should get a drink or something." the interloper said. "I don't drink no more." canoe livery responded. "Oh, ok. Well, maybe we could hang out." "I gotta' get these guys dropped off..." canoe livery said. "Alright, I'll talk to ya'." And we departed. Throughout the conversation, canoe livery's expression did not change. I could have been reading him the specials for the day at a diner with the soup of the day being bean. The fucker simply did not care. I hit on another idea, though, even while we were riding to the drop off. (I only fucked around marginally with small talk, I mean, this guy didn't give a fuck.) What if this guy always corners canoe livery with the worst news imaginable every time he sees canoe livery with people? Just to try to embarrass him. And canoe livery's only response is to not feed in. Who knows the strange ways of the denizens of the deep woods north? "Oh hey, yeah, I'm going to prison. Sheep rape." "Oh." "Hey, we should get a drink. I killed four people on the way over here." "Oh." "Oh hey, I slept with your mother before she died...she said a few things..." "Oh...." But really, I should talk about the recent canoe trip and the goose catcher.
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