Can you paddle away the pandemic?

Disclaimer: this post has a lot of sarcasm and no real information about the pandemic.

Hey, whats up its 2020 the year of the rat which feels really fitting because this year feels like its been stuck in a culvert under New York full of pizza crusts used needles. Everything is closed, and if its not closed you have no interest in going there anyway. If I am going to get the Rona’ its not going to be from a hair stylist trimming my split ends. So you have spent every waking and sleeping moment in your home, you have watched as much Netflix as your spine allows, and already attempted sourdough bread. Whats next? As the temperature rises to egg frying pavement level you head to the only place imaginable, the river (or lake, people in Austin cant seem to decide if its a lake or river).

First though you are going to need some sort of watercraft. You have the option of going to the local outdoors store (masked up of course) and spending 500$ on whatever kayak is left on the shelf or you can head to facebook marketplace. Either option sucks because you know for a fact just two weeks ago that same kayak was $250 and they jacked the price up because they aren’t restocking anytime soon. The last choice on your list, and I mean last choice is to buy one off Amazon which would mean supporting the one company that tried to fire workers for protesting better working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. When you log on to the manufacturer website you find out that they have closed their factories for the health and safety of their employees and are paying them hazard pay as they stay home to be with their families. Shed a tear for all that is good in the world. However, none of this gets you a paddle board into your greedy first world hands. So you click “Buy NOW” on the sidebar of amazon taking a moment of silence for the underpaid employee that had to pack your box in the warehouse on a Thursday night so it could get here in time for one day shipping. Pour one out for the employees at amazon right?

So your paddle board gets here and its OH so sweet. It smells like new plastic and you are already dreaming of paddling up and down the river like one of those people on instagram. The first thing you need to do is inflate it. It comes with a pump, manual obv, and you are sitting here thinking that its 2020 and I have to manually pump up my paddle board? Not gonna happen. So You head over to that box in the closet that no one opens and find your air mattress pump. Plug it in and set up your paddle board only to find out that it has some sort of proprietary valve opening that only fits their included manual pump. This is equivalent of apple changing their charger cables every 5 years so you have to upgrade your devices and buy all new hardware. Screw the electric pump you decide to do it manually. The first 10 minutes are easy and you think this is doable and then it gets to the halfway mark. After checking the manual you realize that the board must be pumped to 13psi which is a whole 6 psi more than what you have already done. You keep pumping away only to stop and realize that your back hurts like you have been working on a factory line for 20 years and you go find someone else to finish the rest of the pumping for you.

You finally get to take the board out after what seems like 10 extra hoops to jump through than you expected. It is awesome, its amazing, the nature is blissful and quiet. There is enough space to get away from anyone you encounter. Fish, animals, plants are abundant and you see more than you ever expected to see. For a few fleeting moments you can forget about the pandemic. You can forget about the state board of education making teachers go back to work as they decide this via a zoom call. You can forget the endless news cycle of bad news and more cases. You forget everything for just a few moments a day. Then you realize that your white collar job of standing in front of a classroom has not prepared you to use your arms as a form of transportation on a watercraft. You get a cramp the size of New Mexico but not quite as large as Nevada. You paddle back to shore, load your board and head home. For the entire afternoon you are laid up on the couch because you forgot to drink water the whole time you were out because you were too busy looking at all the fish. The next day you cant lift your arms but you are ready to go back anyway.