Bubbaville



To get my mind off the withdrawal symptoms, I went to a boat show. I have only been to one other boat show and it was fantastic. I had no reason to not think that all boat shows were fantastic. That was Dallas this is Bubbaville.

I was wrong, some boat shows are fantastic. Some boat show are about showing off floating fantasies and the newest and best technologies the field has to offer. They can make RVs float and make you feel that you will not know nirvana until you own one of those floating paens to excess. I wanted to own a floating RV. I don’t even like boats! (I would as soon not even go on a cruise because all those cruise ships are in my mind, are ways to dump a lot of people into the trackless deep and leave them out there bobbing around to be eaten by sharks!)

Anyway. Other boat shows are about boats that you can afford. I don’t want to pay $8 to look at boats I can afford, that my neighbors might have parked in their side yard, boats that I would probably see at a local marina. I want to pay $8 to look at boats that I will not even be able to look at in the wild – boats too grand for local shores. I want to see Life Styles of The Rich and Buoyant. I mean, I can go to Bubba’ Boat Shack for free, whenever I want to. For money? I want to be hugely impressed, and I want a free drink coozie. And some magnets. And, possibly, some nautically themed note pads. At least.

My other baseless boat fear involves boats and sinking and drowning and being lost in the trackless deep. The shark fear is another water fear – and I don’t think that is entirely baseless. I caught a baby sand shark once and eventually pretty much caused it to die. I know somewhere Mama Sand Shark is still looking for me: I watched Orca, I know Mama Sand Shark has my number.

After the first boat show I went to, I believed that floating RVs not only would not sink but could transform into flying RVs if the boat thought that the worst might be on the horizon. You walk aboard a floating RV and you too would be convinced that it would take care of you.

This boat show didn’t have anything grand or interesting or even vaguely RV in nature. This boat show didn’t have a single boat that couldn’t be trailed. I don’t want to see boats on trailers. I want to see boats that had to be airlifted in. Boats that could be ships. I want to see boats that when lost in the trackless deep, as boats inevitably are, would be large enough to see from the air.

The kind of boat I would feel comfortable on would be a beometh that would have it’s own staff somewhere tracking the thing as it went along it’s way. I want some kind of boat AAA on the look out for me.

But that was Dallas and this is Bubbaville. The Powers That Be do not want Bubba to know what kind of floating RVs he could have if he lived in a better place or had access to better job training and fewer tobacco fields. Bubba is only allowed to dream about small speedboats and low-end fishing trawlers. No Yachts for Bubba, no House Boats to sun his buns on. Bubba could check out some pontoon boats and one or two bass boats. Bubba should not know about the floating RVs.