OWNING A BOAT

I got a letter from a friend saying they had bought a boat.  She lives miles from any water, but her husband and three sons are learning to ski.

We lived a mile from a lake one time.  We considered buying a boat.  My husband wanted a sailboat – a big one, with a cabin on it.  I kept telling him you have to know how to sail one of those things before you buy it.

I said I preferred a motor boat (as long as we were talking lunacy, anyway) so the kids could learn to ski.  The kids overheard the discussion and informed us that they did not want to learn to ski (boring) or sail (too much work), but they would like a pontoon for fishing and swimming.

We did go as far as checking out the price of boats.  When we added the cost of upkeep and storage and divided by the number of days we were likely to use a boat, the whole idea began to look about as smart as buying a paper shredder for our cash.  We decided we would rent a pontoon boat the next time we got this urge again.