Anti-Taliban Kayakers and the Hundred Year Old Wagon

On Saturday, my friends, Vince and Lauren, and I went to volunteer for pre-season at the Downtown Boathouse in NYC.  When we arrived, a tall goofy New Zealand-er named Graeme greeted us and immediately put us to work.  (For those of you that are sci-fi junkies like I am, Graeme reminded me of Wikus in the movie District 9, with a lovable wackyness that makes you wonder how he ever gets anything done, surprising you, of course, when he brilliantly escapes the MNU with that weird alien goop needed to power the spacecraft -- District 9 movie review to be saved for another post).

As a preface to our assignment, Graeme explained that the Downtown Boathouse is not an establishment of "Taliban kayakers," (good to know!) but rather "equal opportunity," believing that "all women should be able to kayak with out a man."  In order to ensure that these standards are upheld, all equipment is tested on a "90 pound woman on the wrong side of 40": if she can do it, anyone can.

Now Graeme revealed our mission impossible (should we choose to accept it - which, of course, we did, since we were the newbies, and obviously subject to cruel initiation).  We were tasked with dismantling a banged-up old set of lockers from the "hundred year old wagon" (complete with rusted metal wheels and handle, see below) that some guy with a "kayaking fetish" had screwed together with about a million more screws than necessary.

One hundred year old wagon / locker set, pre-dismantling:

So, being the good little volunteers that we are, we got straight to work unscrewing nuts and screws and getting our fingers dirty. Graeme came over at one point to see if we might need to use their new hammer drill, which he described as being a "vibrator on steroids."  Reading the quizzical look on my face after that comment, Lauren looked over at me like "yeah, you heard him right.'  We never actually needed to use the hammer drill, but I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for it so we could try it out.  (Side note:  If you know me in person, you know I have ZERO filter, and much like Graeme, say things that are wildly inappropriate way too early in a new friendship / relationship.  Sometimes I spew genius, sometimes word-vomit.   I find this quality in others particularly endearing - unfiltered thoughts are windows to the soul?)

After two hours of unscrewing and a fairly significant set-back due to some rogue bolts, we finally accomplished our task and took the lockers for a spin on their new set of wheels.  Woohoo!!  The volunteers (most of whom were pretty mean to us aside from Graeme and a few others) probably thought we were absolutely crazy when we all screamed out as the lockers lifted off the antique wagon.

Then Graeme gave us a tour of the boathouse (a little recruitment tour).  A whole slew of hilarious things were said, including: "If you find something in the water that might be used for sailing / boating, bring it out, if you find something that's more like garbage then don't bring it out, and if you find a dead body in the water, just push it round the corner under the dock."

The conversation ended with him taking a picture of his ex-girlfriend on a trike out of his wallet (??) and suggesting that I borrow it to pick up boys (he has since followed up with Lauren on whether I wanted to borrow it this weekend).  Apparently Graeme is fairly confident I will meet the love of my life by riding a trike up and down the west side bike path.   While optimistic about love, I am quite dubious about this method of finding it.  I personally think my best option is to kayak in a superhero outfit, a la whomever had this awesome poster taped to their locker:

What do you think?