Float the Boat...

The other day we were playing outside when the sky went dark and the rain came pounding. It was a downpour, the kind that’s typical in Virginia after a day of high temps and humidity. Simon and I watched as gushing rapids washed down the curb, carrying leaves and sticks and whatever stood in its way. Suddenly, I had an idea.

I wanted to make a boat.

No, I didn’t want to go build an ark in the backyard. I wanted to take a sheet of paper and fold it into a boat and watch it float down the street. He was all about it. There was just one problem.

I didn’t know how to make a paper boat.

I knew how to make a paper airplane, but boats? Nope. I tried different folds, racing the clock as the sun threatened to return and the rainwater went from gush to trickle. I folded and creased, but all I came up with were wads of nothing. One after another, I hurried through one crumple to the next, using—ahem—an old manuscript I’d been saving to light our next fire pit. 

Nothing. I had nothing. We tried some lopsided catastrophe that turned out to be a much better submarine than boat. Paper submarines. I was great at those. 

The rain let up. Our floodwaters receded. My son lost interest.

Never again. I vowed to be prepared. The next day, on my lunch break. I Youtubed like a mother. I worked out the kinks (folds) and became a master boat builder. Okay, maybe a decent boat builder. Either way, people stopped by my desk to find a man making paper boats like a boss.

That’s right. I spent my lunch break making paper boats.

This may seem like the work of an idle man with plenty of time on his hands. But no, I want my kid to know certain things, Boy Scout stuff. Everything in The Dangerous Book For Boys. Both simple and complicated. Making a paper boat was one of those things.

So now we just need some rain, but in the meantime, we have a bathtub, so…