29 Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Lesson 23

Lesson 23. Don’t wear your good jewelry to the boat show

In traditional me-fashion, wherever I go, fumbling, embarrassment and mishaps follow. You can stand on the beach and look out as far as you can see and all you’ll see is water.  I love the ocean there is something amazing about it.

Since we live by the ocean you can always expect to see one thing….. boats.

Boats, boats and more boats. Small boats big boats, motor boat, sailboats, fishing boats, cruise ships, oil tankers, navy ships, dinghy’s, and every other kind of water vehicle you can imagine.

With all these boats it really shouldn’t be a surprise to you that once a year there is a huge international boat show.  

Boats come from all over, people come from all over, and things down here get really crazy.

My dad usually has a booth at this boat show. He builds boats so he brings them to the boat show and people can climb all over them and get them dirty and scuffed up and then hopefully want to buy one of their own.

Anyway, I love the boat show, there is something so cool about being surrounded by all those amazing boats from all over the world. For me it’s like looking at the Grand Canyon, I feel so small, but yet so big inside.

This year I was helping my dad at the boat show. I had my own name tag and everything and I felt extremely important. I wanted to look nice for my dad’s company so I dressed in nice preppy clothes put on some nice jewelry and pulled my hair back. I looked very official.

Now, to be correct, my dad actually had TWO booths. A land booth- where he had boats on scaffolding on land for people to look at, and then a water booth on the dock with two boats in the water beside it for people to climb on and see how the boat looked inside.

I liked the water booth more, because the staff had squirreled away soda, chips and stuff underneath the desk there for snacks and as you know I LOVE food.

My dad spent his time walking between the two booths and checking in on how everything was going. I followed him for a while, but then felt awkward and got tired of walking so I decided to stay down by the water booth.

At first it was good, I climbed down into the boat and sat on one of the seats inside and pulled out my phone and just fiddles around on it. But then some prospective buyers walked inside and I felt extremely uncomfortable sitting in there casually while they explored the boat.

You see, the particular boat I was sitting in wasn’t very big. When you first walked into the inside it was just one room, a little larger than the handicap stall at a fast food restaurant with a kitchen sitting area and table all shoved into it. Then, straight ahead was a small bathroom and the master bedroom. As the couple walked around the boat I was pretty much sitting right in the middle of it and they kept bumping me as they walked around. Combined with that and the fact that I felt even more awkward because I had an employee name tag I decided to leave the boat.

I walked out and stood by the desk for a while, but nobody ever asked me questions they asked the other employees because they were older. (And honestly, if someone did ask me a question I didn’t usually know how to answer it so I had to direct them to someone else...)

Anyway, I decided that instead of standing there like a fish dying on land I would walk around and look at other peoples boats.

Long docks connected together to form the platforms between each dock, there were no railings on either side and as hundreds of people were walking around on them you had to pay attention or else you might get shoved in.

I was walking aimlessly when all the sudden I heard

Plop!

Clatter

Clatter

Clatter.

I stopped walking and tried to figure out what had just happened.

I lifted up my hand and blocked the sun from my eyes for a moment.

MY HAND!!

MY BRACELET!!

My bracelet, my nice bracelet that I had been wearing so I would look nice had come unclasp and fallen between the two wooden planks in the dock.

I stared down the crack and was happy to see that instead of falling into the water like it would have had it fallen off anywhere else, it had fallen onto the metal plate that connected this dock to the dock next to it. I got on my knees and reached my hand down the crack as far as I could trying to reach the bracelet, but all those muscles I had gotten from swimming in my upper arm made my arm too fat to reach down the crack enough to grab it. I shimmied my arm out of the crack as carefully as possible trying not to get anymore splinters.

I looked around and didn’t see anyone who looked like they could help me so I turned and walked back to my dad’s booth.

My dad was at the booth and after he finished talking to a customer who had some questions I pulled him to the side and told him what had happened.

“I know what to do.” He told me in the way I knew he always would. (Dad and Mom always know what to do, no matter how old I get my parents will always know how what to do, it’s like a super power!)

“I’ll go get and hanger and then we can stick it down the crack and hook it on the bracelet.”

“Okay,” I smiled, “I’ll go stand by where it is.”

I walked back over to where my bracelet had fallen and sat down and stared down at it.

“Excuse me miss?” I heard someone ask.

I tuned to see one of the security guards standing there staring at me curiously.

“Is something wrong?” He asked

I nodded my head, “I dropped my bracelet down the crack, my dad is going to get a hanger to get it out though.”

He bent down beside me and peered down the crack to where the bracelet was.

He tired sticking his arm down to reach it, but he had even bigger arms then I and it didn’t work at all.

He looked puzzled for a moment, “Well, if the hanger doesn’t work, then when the boat show is closed tonight I can pull these two boards up and then we can get the bracelet.”

“Thanks.” I smiled and he walked away

I sat there for a while, waiting and waiting and waiting, obviously it was a lot harder for my dad to find a hanger than he thought it would be.

After I sat there awhile I heard a voice say, “You’re still here?”

It was the security guard.

I laughed, “Yeah, my dad hasn’t found a hanger yet.”

“I have an idea.” He said, “If I hang over the edge of the dock I can stick my hand in the side and grab it.”

“Hold my feet.” He requested.

He lay on his belly over the edge of the dock and reached his hand inside.

“Tell me if I am close to it!” he yelled to me

I stared down into the crack, “Your close, but it’s a little to your left.” His hand swung around clumsily before finally catching the shiny silver bracelet.

I pulled him up and he brushed off his pants before handing me the bracelet.

“Here you go.”

I took it gratefully and put it in my pocket, I wasn’t putting it back on after all this.

“Thank you!” I told him

He smiled “All in a day’s work.”

After that experience I never wore jewelry around the boat docks again.