The Unsinkable Daviss Clan

By: Samantha S. Daviss

I have never ever claimed to be one of those moms or women who has it completely together. I am fairly organized. I keep the house neat, I know when and where everyone is supposed to be, I typically have snacks, drinks and dry clothes on hand in the back of my car. But for the most part I look like a whizzing tornado most of the time between work, three boys, a house, and a husband.

But this latest adventure for our clan really took the cake on humor, Griswald Family antics, and just plain old southern engineering and proprietary Daviss skills. We recently took a nice long relaxing family vacation. You know the kind where the waters are warm, the sand is soft and white, and your only concern is when your rum punch is running low. I’ve never actually been depressed to come home from a vacation, but this time I was. Because even though it’s summer time, I knew we had lots of work at the office waiting for me, more planned summer activities like baseball and swim lessons, plus birthday parties to host and to attend. So I wasn’t ready to face the music of reality.

And this adventure I was definitely not prepared for. You see my husband and I are building our “forever home” on the lake, so we saved up for a boat and some jet skis for the kids and everyone to play on. And the day we returned from our trip, we receive a nice phone call from one of our future neighbors saying that our boat is floating down current way past our dock and their dock and got lose in a really bad storm we had just gone through.

So “Hi Ho Silver” off my husband goes to rescue our boat. Luckily our sweet neighbor beat us to it and tied it off to another neighbor’s dock down the way until we could really focus all time and energy on retrieving our boat. So of course the next afternoon when my husband and I were going to salvage it, the seas were mighty rough and too windy. So we gave it another shot the following day. Luckily it all worked out.

The key to our rescue is the boat we were rescuing didn’t work, it had blown a fuse, so we had to use another boat to tow it back. Because why would anything be simple and easy for us? So we tooted down the cove in one boat with the kids on board, to save the other boat. And guess who gets to jump off and untie all the ropes and figure out how to maneuver this massive pontoon boat away from our neighbor’s dock…well this gal of course.

So we did it. But now as my husband is towing me out, he is driving in reverse; and I can’t help but laugh. Picture it…a four and five year old on the bow of a ski boat waving to mommy who is stuck on an inoperable pontoon boat while daddy is dragging her to our dock backwards. Pure chaos.

So once we get to our dock the pontoon boat starts to drift to our neighbor’s dock. No big deal, I jump off and drag it around manually with the lead rope tied to it. I walk up his dock, to the sea wall, and start heading for our dock. It’s going great, no problems. Wait a minute, I feel a jerk…the boat stops. And of course the propeller is stuck in the mud now. I pull, I tug, I slip and fall in the grass. 

And now I’m laughing so hard my husband who is out in the middle of the lake on the boat that runs, mind you, has no idea what I am doing.

He parks that boat, everyone unloads. We ask the five year old to hold the steering wheel in place so the propeller to the pontoon boat is facing the deeper waters while my husband and I both tug. Well that didn’t work. So we launch the ski boat back into the water, he comes over and tries to use some horse power to pull me out, all the while I am jumping up and down on the bow of the pontoon boat maybe to shake it loose from the mud.

Low and behold…it worked! It worked too well. As it dislodged itself and went forward, I went backward and landed on my bum in the middle of the boat.

Now I have absolutely lost it. This is just too funny. And I am so hoping our neighbors can’t see the antics going on. So onward and upward, we get it freed and tied to our dock safely, finally.

So we can’t blame all of the chaos and insanity on our children. A lot is offered up by the adults, but as long as you go through life with a smile on your face, a little humor in tough situations, and an adult beverage waiting for you at the end of it all, everything will be just fine.

Just remember to smile, laugh and have fun with life because it’s just too darn short not to enjoy it.