funny story about Marc Z

[Jamie M]

Here is a true and very funny story...

Last weekend I had Marc Z on my boat, which we launched out of Bayberry Lane in Groton to fish the Race. On the way back in, it was decided that Marc would hop out onto the dock, go to the parking lot and back my trailer down the ramp. In light of what happened next, it is worth noting that it was quite windy, and thus Marc had a LOT of heavy clothes on.

I pull the boat up to one corner of the dock. The dock is maybe 3 or 4 feet higher than level of the boat, and therefore maybe 6 feet out of the water. He gets one foot on the dock, and wraps both arms around one of the support posts (there is one in each corner of the dock, shaped like short telephone poles, which go into the water). He figures it will then be easy to swing his other leg from my boat to the dock. Can anyone guess where this is going?

Naturally, the wind picks up, and my boat starts to drift away from the dock, and since Marc's other leg was still in the boat, he starts to do a split. So, he does the only thing he can and manages to wrap both arms and both legs around the support post. He looks rather like a kitten clinging to a tree branch as the flood waters are rising. This was quite funny to see, but I figured he'd probably be able to shimmy his way up onto the dock, which is now at his eye-level.

All of a sudden, I hear the unmistakeable sound of wood splitting. After wondering to myself, "is that sound what I think it is?", I see the support post start to separate from the dock. Marc looked back at us in the boat with a mixed expression of panic and disbelief, and while he was still clinging to the post, it separated from the dock and fell backwards into the drink, Marc holding on the whole time. Once we realized he was OK, we were very sympathetic, as we comforted him by pointing at him, laughing uncontrollably, and saying things like "Ha! Way to destroy the dock, fat boy!." Marc is actually built more like a string bean, maybe 150 pounds soaking wet, which he WAS, believe me. In fact, the poor guy had a wool hat on, 2 sweatshirts, and heavy sweatpants, so with all that water, he probably weighed 400 pounds. If only I had thought to yell out "TIM-BER!" while he was falling, that would have been something.

I hope this reads as funny as it was to see. It was something I'll remember for a long, long time. You can all feel free to use this to embarass Marc at will.