Lake Anna: Pit of Poor Judgment

Every summer, our friends Mike and Jess invite everyone they know (like, literally--the Evite is longer than Gene Simmons' "Tapped That" List) to come to Mike's parents' lake house, cause mayhem of Biblical proportions, and pass out in assorted Cubist positions on the basement floor circa 3am. They schedule it around the Fourth of July so that we can pretend that we're getting together to rally round the flag and squeal patriotic hymns, but really, the gathering serves to get us all together in such a way that we can stagger around the house the next morning, mugs of coffee dangling dangerously from our shaky hands, moaning the motto of every twentysomething in America: "I just can't drink like I used to."

This year Lawyer Boy and I pulled out of Richmond right around lunchtime, aiming to be in full frolic on the shores of the lake a mere hour later. We should have known better, as I-95 on a sweltering summer Satuday was jammed full of my arch-nemesis, Every Other Driver Ever. We slogged along for an hour, me shrieking impotently behind the wheel and LB trying to cover the dog's ears from my violent profanity, the highlights of which would have made Howard Stern blush. Finally we escaped the interstate's wrath and flew down the country roads towards barbecue, booze, and those foam noodle things that make unseemly attempts to drown me every summer.

When we docked ourselves at the house, Mike was just pulling up the boat from taking his friend Kevin waterskiing, and offered to drag me around the lake. I grew up boating, and I know how to waterski, which is astounding, since some days it is questionable as to whether or not I actually know how to walk. I had to debate whether I really wanted to try out my sea legs for two reasons. First off, there was a dock full of people waiting to watch me skip my face across the water like an unlucky, wailing pebble. A lot of Mike and Jess' friends know me from college, so they know me for my more charming traits, like nosediving into a puddle in the middle of a bar, and making tender yet passionate love to a toilet bowl at 2am.

The second reason I was concerned about skiing behind this boat is because it involved skiing behind this boat, which is not meant to pull skiers. A good boat to ski behind has enough power to speed up quickly, yanking the skier up out of the water so she can try to find her balance immediately. A bad boat to ski behind, while it might be great for trolling around looking for bass or whatever, pulls you up so slowly that you might as well be trying to hoist yourself up behind a three-year-old on a tricycle. If you're not out of the water, you can't balance. If you can't balance, you teeter along for a few seconds, screaming like a hooker and watching your thighs billow in the wind before your head smacks into the water, where you open your eyes in time to see your bikini bottom drifting toward a watery grave at the bottom of the lake, free as a bird. Just like your ass.

I mean, that's purely hypothetical.*

On my second try at public humiliation, I managed to get up and stay up, and had a nice ride around the lake, except for the part where El Capitan kept steering the boat through the wakes of other boats. When you're being dragged behind a boat, skittering along precariously on two glorified two-by-fours, and you see said boat start to bounce like a yo-yo, it is likely that you will start to wonder if the same people who brought us the Spanish Inquisition were also responsible for the birth of water sports.

Once we returned to dry land and everyone stopped laughing at me**, it was time to kick back with a cold one. Everyone had brought a contribution for dinner, ranging from a delicious cucumber salad down to my totally obscene "tropical" cake. I had originally planned to use my completely marginal cake-decorating skills to smear frosting into a patriotic pattern in honor of the Fourth, but the day before the party, Jess mentioned that they had decided on a tropical theme for the party instead. It was my feeling that Betsy Ross couldn't come to a party hosted by Hawaii Five-Oh, so I decided to whip up some pink, yellow, and green frosting, and festoon the cake with tropical flowers. What resulted was a cake covered in what appeared to be, by all accounts, pink and yellow octopi trying to have filthy squid-sex all over it. The pink ones were the girls, obvi, and let me tell you something. Thank God we had all been drinking by the time we laid into the cake, or watching nature take its course all over our dessert would have been too much to stomach.

After dinner we did all those great summer things that you do at the lake, like making a bonfire, lighting fireworks, and getting ticks all over us. When we had eventually had enough of playing buffet to the local insect population, we made our way into the basement, which is fully tricked out with a wet bar, poker table, and pool table. LB, Jess, and a few others commandeered the poker table for a game that I assume I do not know the rules to, since no one invited me, and I am positive that this had nothing to do with the fact that I am a totally useless sack of whiny during card games of any sort. Mike, Kevin, and I set up shop at the bar, where we mixed drinks while Kevin made fun of the music on my ipod for a solid five hours. All I have to say is, Kevin must have been genuinely and thoroughly wasted, because that is the only circumstance under which someone could not appreciate the musical genius of Tiffany, Britney, and Flo-Rida.***

Without my knowledge and likely against my will, someone took this picture of Kevin and I sitting at the bar, and now I understand how celebrities feel when the paparazzi snap shots of them staggering out of clubs in the wee hours of the morning. Can't you see the headline on the cover of Life & Style now?

WHERE'S LAWYER BOY????

A dazed Grace gets wasted at the bar with a mystery man, while Lawyer Boy plays it up with sexxxy ladies!

We were all of three feet apart, but everyone would be saying that we were leaving Richmond and packing our bags for Splitsville.**** Do you think this is what happened to Jon & Kate?

Me neither.

The card game wound down around 2:30, at which point those of us in the group with more common sense than unhousebroken puppies went to bed--which is to say, I stayed up. Mike, Kevin, and I decided to play pool, Mike actually playing for himself and Kevin coaching me, whereby "coaching" meant "flicking balls into pockets when Mike wasn't looking." Even on a good (sober) day, I'm terrible at pool. I have been told that there is a theory that, up to a certain level of drunkity, alcohol actually makes you a better pool player, resulting in an optimal level of drunken athletic prowess. That may be true, but when you have to be reminded before each shot whether you are the plain balls or the stripey balls, you are no longer at the optimal point of anything. Mike later claimed that I eventually stopped taking aim at the cue ball, and instead fired directly at the ball I was trying to sink.

Sidebar, Your Honor: I would like to know why pool is not played that way in the first place. Maybe if it were, pool could take its place among other respectable sports like baseball, tennis, and polo, where in order to hit the ball you are aiming for, you actually hit the ball you are aiming for.

Sometime around 4:30, one of us realized that we were within an hour of dawn and suggested we go to bed, an idea I brutally rebuffed. Going to bed once you realize it's already almost dawn is a bit like ordering a Diet Coke with a Big Mac and fries and giving yourself a pat on the back for maintaining your rigorous nutritional standards. We played a few more rounds (sets? matches?) of "pool" before the guys, wimps to the core, begged off. I contemplated staying up to watch the sun rise by myself, eventually deciding against an idea that would put me awake, by myself, in full daylight. What would I do then? Make muffins and coffee and wait for everyone else to wake up?

Fine, I did think of that. But I couldn't find baking powder.

*Except for the part where that happened to me when I was 14.
**Which was three hours after we returned to dry land.
***Flo Rida? Flow-Ridah? Florida?
****We're not, BTW. LB is the best thing since peanut butter M&Ms.*****
*****Which are beyond outstanding, if that is any indication of how much I love him.