The Canoe

“Yes, I’d like to rent a canoe,” I say.

A colleague near me smiles. But it’s not funny. I’m on the phone and I actually do really want to rent a canoe. It’s like the time I called a petshop from the newsdesk and I started the conversation with a chirpy: “Good morning, do you sell catflaps?”

Someone nearly choked.

Just because they sound like opening lines in a comedy sketch doesn’t mean they aren’t valid. You can hear it though, can’t you? The sound of an old-fashioned shop-keeper’s bell? Right? Then the line?

The lady on the phone asks me if I know how to handle a canoe.

“Handle a canoe, ” I think, “Have you ever read this?”

But I don’t have my blog with me and she probably hasn’t anyway, so I say: “Yes. Yes I do.”

“What level are you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never done a grading.”

I used to go kayaking with a club at weekends, too, and it bugs me when people mix up canoes with kayaks.

“I can canoe.” Then I start thinking of a Glaswegian going: “I can kayak, aye, but I cannae canoe” and that goes on for a bit.

“Can you do the stroke where you steer the boat in either direction while just paddling on one side?”

“Yeah…” I say in a defiant, half-mocked, single-breathed laugh.

“What’s the name of that stroke?”

Oh. Now I really want to do a muttered and sarcastic baby voice and repeat what she said. Partly because I don’t know, and partly because I am a fucking child. “Wassanameothastroke???”

“Um, I don’t know,” I say.

“It’s called a J stroke.”
“S’calledajaystro….”

“You would need to come in for lessons before you can go out on your own.”

“Well, I’ll think about it then,” I say, as if there are loads of other places to rent canoes in the Thames Valley.

This is why men suck now. It’s stuff like this. A lack of access to outdoor sporting goods and paddle gradings.

Bitch.

Have a good weekend.