Rain-Gutter Regatta

O.K. We knew it was going to happen. Could see it coming as clearly as if an oracle had foretold it. And yet, like Oedipus, the outcome was unavoidable despite all that we did to thwart it. We lost several pieces from Paris' Cub Scout Rain-Gutter Regatta kit.

We received the kit at last month's Den Meeting. We were given a two page instruction sheet, and the kit, with a warning that there would be no "extra" kits given out. All the boys promptly opened up the kits and examined the parts--sail, mast, keel, boat body, rudder, and keel. Knowing that our house has an unidentified black hole where socks, homework, and various Important Papers have been sucked in, never to return and knowing that Paris can not keep things in their Proper Place to save his life, I took the box and stuck it in my purse. Where it remained until we got home and I put it on top of the TV cabinet, where he could not reach it, and yet where we would be constantly reminded every time we thought we had a moment to sit and watch The Office that no, there is a boat that needs to be built.

The Saturday before the meet (yes, we waited that long to get started--we had an uncanny ability to ignore the yellow box on top of the TV), we got the boat down to paint it with leftover spray paint in the garage. There is definitely less panache to the Regatta than to the Derby. The Derby is a showcase of woodworking, aerodynamics, diligence to details, design and artistic ability, not to mention racing aptitude. The regatta basically boils down to how hard you can blow air through a straw. So there was a lot less care and planning that went into the boat. In fact it was the night before Den Meeting before Paris went to retrieve the boat drying in the garage (painted half neon yellow, half white) to finish gluing on the other pieces.

He affixed the mast and sail, but the keel and rudder were missing. Gone. The box was unexplainably empty. No amount of back tracking, peering into small cracks, looking in every likely and unlikely place was going to locate a white plastic rudder or a diamond shaped metallic keel. I knew this would happen, thought I had done what I could to prevent it, yet here I was on hands and knees peering into places I'd just as soon not know what was back there.

After about an hour of looking, I gave up. Paris would just have to do his best rudder- and keel-less. Brian had a bit more compassion and jimmy-rigged a keel and rudder from a cottage cheese lid. I was dubious that the boat would float straight or even stay upright, but Brian's a better engineer than I give him credit for and for the most part Paris' boat stayed the course. He was even 2nd in his age group--after all, we all know he has a lot of hot air.