#32: Crashed a Boat into a Puppet Theatre
I crashed a boat into a puppet theatre. Very, very slowly. It was my birthday and unfortunately my ex-mother-in-law had overflowed the last cartridge toilet on our narrowboat, meaning I had no choice but to take the boat itself to the waste disposal point, rather than lugging our three full cartridge toilets a mile across town in a bike trailer as I usually did, which at least involved not having to drive a boat. The notable thing about the waste disposal point – essentially a giant bucket – was that it was in an area of the canal where turning around was very tight and difficult. I got there, moored the boat, and emptied the toilets (splashing my arm with my ex-mother-in-law’s piss in the process), and unfortunately, as I left, that was when my narrowboat decided it wasn’t going to steer at all in reverse. At all. So first I crashed inexorably slowly into a floating café, the waitstaff of which swore at me in Polish, and then I crashed equally slowly into the puppet theatre moored on the other side of the canal.
I had no choice but to tether myself to the puppet theatre and sheepishly await rescue from the irascible handyman who lived on our mooring and begrudgingly helped out hapless hipster boaters, of which my ex and I were definitely two. It wasn’t a good birthday… *not her fault – obviously we should have planned better, and these were the consequences.
