The Fallen Tree - Robbie's Next Wet Adventure
Posted by Robert on November 21, 2021 at 20:36:23
I have another story from an event a bit more recently - and in colder weather! Note that all the "quotes" I put in this are approximate recollections of what was said.
As I noted before, Robbie kind of became a "wackywetter". In his words, "how many times do you get to do something as crazy as ruining a good suit or completely drenching your clothes and shoes and not get yelled at by grownups?". As I noted in the first story, Robbie was usually a bit of a maverick and liked to do things just because his friends did them (and usually bad things) - and either my wife or I would usually let him have it. For us, getting wet is not a bad thing and if he thinks it is and has fun doing it and it keeps him out of trouble, then he can go ahead and soak every single thing in his closet if he wants to.
The party I wrote about earlier took place in August. This next event was in October and it was quite cold! We had an absolutely awful fall - lots of rain and even a bit of snow. Well, I went out with the boys for a walk through the woods, and Robbie ended up 100% soaked. Sam didn't get fully wet, and was complaining about the cold, so I quashed his brother's attempts to call him chicken.
Robbie was wearing dark blue skinny jeans, had on a plain white long-sleeved t-shirt, and a black puffy sleeveless winter jacket. And, of course, his black Air Maxes since those were now his "play" shoes, as he put it. To be honest, those shoes look and sound incredible wet, so I can understand why he likes to soak them now :). We were walking through some trails as we usually did on weekends (we live in a very rural area that has a lot of nearby trails, but during this time of year, the trails aren't usually that busy). I don't like to drive much so we had walked about 30 minutes just to get to the first trail (this is important later). For those interested, Sam was wearing grey sweat pants (sort of skinny - the new style of those), white New Balance shoes, and a blue puffy winter jacket (not sleeveless). I forget what shirt he was wearing underneath (sorry).
When we got to the trail head, we saw there was a substantial amount of mud but decided to continue anyway. I don't like mud (other than to look at others getting muddy), and was actually discouraging the boys from getting too muddy. They didn't seem interested in the mud either, so we were avoiding it. Normally, there is a large waterfall about a 10 minute walk into this trail from the trail head, and normally you can hear it about 3 to 4 minutes in. But we couldn't hear it.
"Hey Dad, this is the trail with the waterfall, right?" asked Robbie.
"Yeah, it is," I said.
"Hmm, I don't hear it yet," Robbie said.
"You're right, usually we hear it by now," I replied.
We continued down to see what was going on, because it wasn't THAT cold for the waterfall to have frozen up, so we wanted to see if there was something else happening. Once we got to the lookout point which is at the top of the waterfall area, we could see that the waterfall was down to a trickle for some reason.
"Hey look!" yelled Sam. "There's a big tree trunk down back there!"
Sam had noticed a big tree had fallen in behind the falls and all the water was diverting to the areas around the falls and thus trickling down into the valley in many areas instead of in the one main area as usual.
"Can we go back there and explore it, Dad?" asked Robbie.
"Alright, let's go see," I said.
We went around to the other side of the trail which went past that area and it was basically flooded due to the blockage. Suddenly, Robbie started to wade in and got on top of the log. At this point, only his shoes and the bottoms of his pants were wet.
"C'mon, Sam, this is a neat view," said Robbie who was standing on top of the log, off the main trail, looking down into the valley with a never-before-seen view.
Sam stepped into the water with one foot but immediately retreated. "F***, it's cold!!!" he quipped.
"Oh who cares?" said Robbie. "Once you step in you'll get used to it."
Sam tried again and put both feet in and stayed for a few seconds before getting back out. "No way, this is not the same as that pool, Robbie, this is freezing water!" Sam quipped.
Robbie started to egg Sam on and call him chicken, which ticked Sam off and he decided just to wade in anyway. I stayed on the side to watch for now, still not really in the mood for getting wet (sorry, I haven't really been in the mood since I've had kids, as I noted before).
Finally, Sam reached the log and was wet up to his knees. His grey sweat pants were basically black from the knees down. "This if f***ing cold, Robbie, jeez," quipped Sam as he stepped up onto the log.
"Pfft, who cares about the cold, it's the view and the thrill that counts most," said Robbie.
The two were just basically standing there for a few minutes when an older couple walked by and stopped to chat with me.
"Whoa, that log must have just fallen, we were just walking through here the other day," said the older guy.
"Yeah, I think it did. The boys wanted to explore it," I said, concerned that they had actually stopped to tell them to get off the log.
"Teenagers nowadays, huh? Don't feel any temperature," said the lady who reached down and felt the water with her hand. "It's freezing."
"I know, my youngest was complaining but my oldest doesn't feel a thing. Or at least doesn't like to admit it," I said.
"I think that's it, hun, as the kids get older they don't like to admit feeling cold. But they actually are," said the guy.
We laughed and chatted for a few minutes as the Robbie waded behind the log and Sam stayed on top.
"You looking for buried treasure?" yelled the guy to Robbie.
"Uh, no, I'm just looking around at what's underneath," said Robbie, whose white shirt sleeves are now 100% soaked and transparent. His jeans are mostly wet now too as he had been bending down into the water.
The couple just smiled and went on their way. Nice folks. Even though it is a rural area, we still see people around we don't know. Sometimes people drive for kilometres to some of these trails, particularly in the summer and fall.
"C'mon, Sam, there's branches under here!" said Robbie who pulled one off the tree and held it up.
"Nah, too cold. I'm gonna go back to Dad," said Sam, who began to walk along the log back to the trail.
As Sam got back onto the trail, Robbie started to call him chicken again, which is when I told him to stop it and to not keep pressuring his brother. Those folks were right - as a teenager (particularly the boys) gets older, they don't like to complain about feeling cold, even if they are. Suddenly, as Robbie was walking back down the river a bit, he tripped on something and ended up completely in the water. That caught my attention and I was about to wade into the water, but he surfaced very quickly.
"Ah, refreshing," said Robbie.
Sam just laughed, and I smirked.
"C'mon, Robbie, get out and let's go home to dry you off," I said.
"Why, I'm not cold? I'm having a blast!" said Robbie.
"I know, but even if you don't think you're cold, you most likely are," I said, encouraging him to get back onto the trail.
"Ok, fine," he said, as he waded back to the trail and got out of the water. His shoes hugely squelched, his jeans and jacket were as shiny as is possible, and his white sleeves were completely transparent.
"Your shoes sound kinda wet," I said, a bit wryly.
"I know, it's an awesome feeling. Why do so many people think this is gross?" said Robbie.
"Because they are brought up to think it's gross," I said. "It's the parental influence."
We continued walking along the trail which loops around back to the trail head, and past many people along the way - none of whom said anything about Robbie whose shoes could likely have been heard squelching for kilometres. Sam was legitimately cold, and I gave him my jacket as well. He won't likely go out and get wet in cold weather again.
As we got close to the trail head, we saw a family parking in the lot nearby and walking towards it. Robbie immediately realized that this was the family of one of his friends from school, Cody.
"Hi Cody!" yelled Robbie.
"Oh, Robbie, hi!" said Cody back as they approached each other. "What happened to you?"
For a moment, Robbie looked at him like he was speaking German, but then realized he meant how did he get wet. "Oh, uh, the waterfall is blocked by a huge tree and I was exploring in the water around it," he said.
"Aren't you cold?" Cody asked.
"A bit, but I can handle it. It's actually colder now that it was in the water. My brother's freezing, though," Robbie continued.
I wanted to get the boys home, so I was trying to move Robbie along. I fist bumped his parents and said hi to his sister. "Sam's a bit cold, Robbie, so don't be long with Cody," I said.
"Yeah, ok. Sorry, Cody, see you in school," said Robbie.
"See ya!" said Cody.
For those interested, Cody is quite tall (taller than Robbie who is also tall), and has a really deep voice suited for a broadcaster. He's also 16 and is on many sports teams. Robbie and Cody were both going to be on the volleyball team which is going to be starting up again this spring after a hiatus due to the pandemic. Sorry, I don't remember what he was wearing, other than he had winter clothes on. Not that it matters anyway since he was dry :).
We started to walk back home and Robbie quipped to me. "Hey Dad, why do shoes hold so much water? It still feels like I'm walking through the river."
"It's like your clothes, son, they are fabric inside as well as foam. Both hold the water," I said.
"Oh," he said. "I just don't know how to explain it, but this just feels, well, cool."
"You can change that to 'cold'," quipped Sam, smirking.
"No, I mean cool in the other sense. I don't know why, but it just feels wrong but yet you are letting me do it," said Robbie.
"I'd rather you get soaked than smoke or drink, son. Or doing drugs, jumping off bridges, etc. I think in your mind it's still wrong because no one else dares to do it, but yet the things they dare to do are actually harmful," I said. "Mind you, you could get hypothermia if it was any colder out, but water in general is harmless."
"So you and mom wouldn't actually mind if I get wet?" asked Robbie.
"Not at all," I said.
"Wow, ok," said Robbie, genuinely surprised.
While he had gotten wet a few times since that party, I found out that he actually thought his mom and I hated it and just got sick of telling him to stop doing things. When he got the all clear to do something he viewed as "maverick" or "wrong", that was basically his cue to do it anytime he wanted.
"I can't believe we're walking in complete view of the public, while fully soaked. I wonder what people think?" Robbie asked.
"They probably don't care much about you, most people are more worried about themselves," I said. Sam suddenly let out a laugh.
"Really?" said Robbie. "No one going past us in the cars would think 'hey, that kid must be weird because he's soaked'?"
"I doubt it. Unless you were trespassing on private property or jumping in someone's pool without permission or something like that. So no doing those things," I said.
"No way, just you letting me do this is neat," said Robbie.
"Will you let me too?" asked Sam, who surprising piped up.
"Of course, just nothing illegal like I said," I said.
We got back to the house and Robbie ran straight to his room without taking anything off first, leaving a trail of dirt along the way.
"Uh, Robbie, there is a condition. You have to clean up any messes, whether is it puddles of water or trails of dirt," I said, looking straight at my wife.
Robbie smiled back at me and said, "Sure thing. Sorry, Dad."
Sam went into his room (they have separate rooms) and started to change before Robbie barged in.
"Hey, why don't we just go into the hot shower?" said Robbie. "Will clean off our clothes and warm us up."
"I'm not going into the shower with you, Robbie," said Sam.
"Fine, you can go first, then I'll go," said Robbie.
As they were chatting, my wife came over and wrapped her arm around me. "I think our days of dealing with Robbie's dealings may finally be over," she said. Phew, I thought, she was on-board fully, and agreed completely with me.
The boys both went into the bathroom and shut the door, so I don't know what happened after that, but I heard them yelling away at each other and I know they each got even more soaked. When they were done, they left their piles of clothes in the bathtub, to which my wife quipped, "those go downstairs and hung up on the line. Shoes go on the floor by the drain. Later on, I'll show you the proper way of drying your stuff out."
Robbie actually looked thrilled.
----
Since this, Robbie has a very keen interest in getting wet all the time, hence why I started posting these. I still haven't asked if he knows about this site, but I'm about 95% certain he does. Robbie is not his real name, of course, as I mentioned before (but his name is a "junior" version of my real name, like I have done here with Robert and Robbie), but if he reads the site he will for sure know it's about him (but no one else will, which is the point). While Sam is not a "wackywetter", he's keen to participate with Robbie and does get wet occasionally. I'd say that Robbie has been wet basically everyday since this event, mostly in the shower due to our colder weather.
And those Air Max shoes have never really dried. He even told my wife that he wasn't going to take them downstairs anymore since he's always going to soak them, and ended up putting them in a plastic storage bin in the bottom of his closet so the water from them doesn't get all over. I can't wait for his reaction at Christmas when I buy him brand new shoes, and see if he wants to soak them right away or if he is nervous to do so. I can't tell yet, but he did get new jeans the other day and I found them hanging on the line downstairs the next morning after we went off to school :).
I'll see if I can publish more of Robbie's adventures here. I suspect many are just going to be boring, though. Meaning, that they will just be showers and such. But if he does something else, I will post it. And if he soaks his new shoes, I'll most definitely post about it, but I won't egg him on to do it. "All his friends" have these cool customized Nike shoes (ha ha, they don't but whatever - that's just a teenage boy's way of saying "please!"), so we will get them for him and surprise him.
- Re: The Fallen Tree - Robbie's Next Wet Adventure Wetnboy 15:58:37 11/22/2021
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