ghoste on the boate

this was a spring cleaning weekend for me. yesterday the apartment felt the wrath of mr. clean (i guess i probably should have put the large hoop back in my earlobe to fully look the part). today, i headed down to the marina, thinking that i would go for a sail. somehow a bottle of tung oil had been leaking, and so i ended up cleaning that, then evaluating which other projects i should spend the afternoon working on. the cabin lights had stopped working, so i pulled my ammeter out of the toolbox and started poking at the contacts. after about 45 minutes of complete mystification (everything tested out a-ok, but still no lights), i decided to take a break before i started tearing everything apart in frustration. i washed my hands, sat down and unwrapped my sandwich, then looked up. the lights were on. one of those moments that, were it in a movie, would be accompanied by a triple-forte string wallop, causing your heart to skip a beat in its simple, yet frighteningly incongruous appearance. but life is not a movie, and i just stared at the glowing bulb and said “fuck, that sure is weird”.
i also hauled the ’69 johnson outboard out of the storage locker today and walked it up to the dumpster. i spotted some guy on a bicycle giving it a hard lookover, and later when i passed by on my way home, it was gone. good luck pal, make sure you steer clear of the hornblowers with that thing.