THE HOARD OF THE FLIES

HOARD OF THE FLIES
By Tim Colin
While at the bar, my dad and I had an argument a few days ago. He told me that if you take a boat out of Frankfort Michigan and go due west you would eventually get to Wisconsin. I and my two brothers all laughed at dad since we knew from our school books that the state that lies directly across Lake Michigan from Northern Michigan is Utah. Well, of course we had to bet on it and since it was a question that involved the high seas we decided to bet a bottle of rum. .

Neither dad nor I or either of my two brothers could quite figure out how to find out if the state lying just across the Lake was Wisconsin or Utah so, we asked our co-worker and guest writer for our blog Gerrard. Gerrard said he hated geometry in school because he couldn’t figure out what some theorem about supplements of congruent angles is congruent had to do with state capitals. Gerrard did have an idea as to how we could answer our question. He said that if we took a boat across to the other side then, we could ask someone once we arrived. Gerrard does not look too bright but, he seemed to have an idea that we all agreed was the best way to find out which state is on the other side of Lake Michigan.

A couple of days later my dad had found a boat and before you knew it we were all headed out of the harbor in Frankfort for some unknown state that laid beyond our view. The crew consisted of me, my dad, my older brother Ted and my younger brother Mike and of course Ted and Mike’s friend, Gerrard. My dad had borrowed the boat from some buddy of his from the Vietnam War. I think Vietnam was after WWII but, before the French Revolution. Anyway, no matter how much any of us begged my dad refused to let anyone drive the boat except himself.

It was a nice boat, about twenty five feet long with a little room down below where you could use the bathroom in case you had a party with girls on board. Otherwise, it was easier just to give Mother Nature her due by aiming over the side of the boat for the big lake. Of course you should always be aiming downwind. I kept telling my brothers and Gerrard that they needed to always be downwind of me when they relieved themselves but, do you think they ever listened?

Well things were going pretty good for quite a while. My dad, brothers and I were on one side of the boat and Gerrard was on the other so the boat was pretty much balanced out. Unfortunately, when we were about ten miles out of port we ran out of gas. It seems that dad was a little tight on cash that day so he figured out just exactly how much gas it would take to get to the other side of Lake Michigan and that was all he bought. In order to get back to Michigan he figured we’d each have to get some sort of part time jobs on the other side of the lake to buy gas. Of course that was a mute point now since we were out of gas and were most likely either going to starve to death or be eaten by Lake Michigan tiger sharks. Of course dad finally figured out that his mistake was that he did not take Gerrard’s weight into consideration when he bought gas so that was why we did not even make it half way across Lake Michigan.

After about a half hour of contemplating who would be eaten for dinner my brother Mike spotted an island off the aft port starboard bow that we were drifting toward. About an hour later our boat hit a rock and sank just about fifty feet from shore. We all managed to climb off the boat and wade to shore. No one saved anything from the boat except dad managed to a bottle of rum and as soon as he got to shore he walked off the beach to the nearest tree, sat down and began to swig down the rum without offering any to anybody else. Within twenty minutes he had consumed the entire bottle and passed out with his face buried flat in the sand.

Upon seeing dad with his face in the sand my brother Mike said,” Maybe someone ought to do something with dad. He might suffocate like that.”

To which I replied,” I don’t care. Just let it be known that any of you that get yourself killed is going to be on my supper menu tonight. There might be nuts, bird eggs and, shellfish on this island but I need protein everyday to sustain myself. I will even eat my own kin just so I can stay alive. “

I took my two bothers to the side and said that “I have a real problem with Gerrard running around the island with just his underwear on. For one thing, why is he doing this?”

My brother Ted said that at home Gerrard’s mother didn’t allow him to run around with just his underwear on so he was trying to express his freedom while on a deserted island where his mom could not see him. My other brother Mike said that Gerrard told him that he had stripped off all his cloths because he figured there would be hula girls somewhere on the island and he wanted to impress them with his massive physique.

I also told my brothers that maybe being lost at sea was a good thing. I said that I was going to set up a camp on the other side of the island for guys who want to hunt and stuff and have a good time. My older brother Ted agreed with me but, my stupid younger Brother Mike decided that he and Miss Piggy (My new nick name for Gerrard), would stay on the side of the island where the old man was passed out in case he needed help. Mike also said he and Miss Piggy would keep a fire going so someone might rescue us. I told him that we were at least twelve miles off shore and no one would ever rescue us.

Ted and I hunted all over our side of the island but, the only creatures we found were bugs. Finally, I stumbled across a whole patch of mushrooms. At last we hunters would be able to provide a feast for everyone on the island. Those would show everyone how superior hunters are to guys that just sit around trying to get rescued.

The one problem Ted and I had was that neither of us had any way to start a fire. I knew that if only one of us had a pair of glasses then we could refract sunlight onto some dry grass and start a fire. The problem with that idea was that I’ve never had to wear glasses and Ted had laser surgery on his eye balls back when he worked at Wall Mart and had some insurance. I soon realized that the only way that we could get some fire to cook our mushrooms on was to steal the fire from the other camp.

I take great joy in being sneaky so, I sneaked over to the other camp and took a stick that had hot coals on the end of it. I was right in plain sight of my brother Mike but, he did not put up any kind of fight. He just said to Gerrard “I guess my brothers need some fire. You’d think they’d just ask for a lighter or some matches.”

Once the mushrooms were cooked Ted and I each tried a few. Suddenly, we no longer felt any anxiety about being lost off the Lake Michigan Coast or anything else for that matter. I’m not sure what Ted did after we consumed some mushrooms but I wandered out to the beach and saw several dozen gorgeous pastel colored mermaids just lying around relaxing. They were lying around just like they were waiting for me.

After several hours of having kissy-face with the mermaids I suddenly laying in the sand and staring up at a guy in some sort of uniform. He said “What in the world is going on here?” I had stinky seaweed all over my face and a hoard of flies were moving in and out of my nostrils, ears and, mouth.

Well the guy was from the Coast Guard and they rescued all of us and took us back to Michigan. We never did get to the other side of the lake to find out what state was over there but, after lots of research on the internet it seems that the state on the other side of Lake Michigan from Michigan is Ecuador. Who would have thanked it?