No Canoe Can Hold Me

by Dennis Puttkamer

Care to take a relaxing, uneventful canoe trip down the lazy river, the
sights and sounds of nature soothing you? Want the warm midday sun to
bronze your shoulders as you calmly drift across the water?

Well, you'd better call someone else to join you. Because when Dennis
Puttkamer steps into a canoe, there's going to be trouble.

They have yet to build a canoe that can contain Dennis Puttkamer, Canoe
Tipper Extraordinaire. No matter the brand or make-Grumman
Double-Ender, Michi-Craft T-17, Pelican Dare Devil-give me enough
time, and I'll find a way out of it. Whether I'm recklessly standing up
to scout for potential dangers ahead, or throwing all my weight
unexpectedly over to one side after seeing what I believe to be a
beaver, I will upset the canoe's delicate balance.

Not even the Alcatraz of canoes, the impregnable Old Town, can hold me
within. I am a modern-day Harry Houdini. When it comes to canoes.

For instance, I've been known to decide, mid-voyage, that I'm feeling a
little "seasick," and need, urgently, to switch places in the canoe.
Using my patented "Not- Thinking-Things-Through" technique, I will then
begin stumbling toward the bow before you have a chance to react,
toppling us both into the freezing river water below. You won't know
what hit you, although if past experience is any indication, it will
probably be my paddle.

You can put me in a canoe all right, but you can't keep me in a canoe.
And if you try, I promise you this: I will escape, most likely after
dropping my paddle in the water and reaching out precariously to
retrieve it, though it obviously sits well outside my meager reach. And
when I do, believe you me, everything you hold dear-camping supplies,
fishing poles, beer cooler-will get what's coming to them.

Come hell or high water, although it's usually the latter, I will
emerge victorious. There's no rock too far out in the distance that I,
in wholly unfounded desperation, won't violently steer away from,
crashing into an unseen piece of driftwood just feet to my left in the
process.

Yes. I'm that good.

[The rest at http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46695]