“Son,” said my father, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow before continuing to chop wood, “it’s time you learned what it was to be a man.”
“Dad,” I said, “why did you hack our shed to pieces with that ax? We spent all spring working on --”
“That’s not important right now. What’s important is you becoming a man. I’m going to teach you how to be a man. Son…we’re going rafting.”
This was going to be so awesome. This was going to be the best day of the summer – no, of my life.

Unfortunately, my mom, snot nosed little brother and bratty sister had to go with us. After some whining and a touch of hearty groveling, Dad allowed me to bring my girlfriend, too. Her name is Sadie Magillicudy. She looks like Franz Kafka in drag, but she has a really nice personality. I thought my stupid brother was going to wet himself over being invited to go. “Hey, Orson!”
“What Thurston?”
“Daddy is taking me rafting!”
“I know; we’re all going.”
“Even Ambrosia, Son?” Ambrosia is my little sister. Son is my nickname. I like it; it makes me feel like Jesus.
“Yes, even Ambrosia, Ton.”
“Even Aquaman?”
“No. Your questions are stupid. Shut up and leave me alone you little creep.” And then he turned around all in a huff and walked smack into a wall. I love my little brother.

It turns out my dad was three time Olympic water-water rafting gold medalist, which surprised me greatly since I’m pretty sure there is no such event. He packed all this rafting crap into the station wagon, but then the station wagon broke down so we just walked the rest of the way. It was only forty miles. Around the ten mile point, my girlfriend collapsed from heatstroke and Dad said I had to leave her, so I gave her a pack of matches I took from Joe’s Greasy Colon and asked some of the local vultures to watch over her. They looked friendly enough.

“Here we are! The great outdoors! The only place where a man can really find himself!” It was beautiful. Wonders of all kinds laid themselves out to be seen by my common eyes. Fellow adventurers wander all about us; they were strangers but shared with us the great wealth of splendor that God’s good grace endowed this particular region of land with. And then I noticed something.
“Dad, this is Las Vegas.”

It turns out that the Venetian Hotel and Casino has a fully functioning and quite lovely canal on its premises. It also turns out that this was the only body of water in all of Nevada that Dad hadn’t been permanently banned from. He paid the gondola operator (who was defiantly just a 17 year-old kid with a glue-on mustache and fake accents) five dollars and we were on our way, zooming along at a steady 2 miles per hour. I actually thought the water was getting a bit choppy at one point, but it turns out Dad was just rocking back and forth and making whooshing noises with his mouth. Then my sister started to cry and my mom told my dad that she was leaving him for the gondola operator. In a fit of despair, my dad leaped from the boat and thrashed around in the water until I pulled him up by the collar and walked him to shore. “C’mon Dad, snap out of it,” I said, “We don’t need them. This is Vegas, man.”
“You’re right, Son. Let’s go.”

I don’t really remember what happened after that except that I woke up the next morning with no pants on and a funny taste in my mouth. I’m never smelling any of Dad’s mysteriously stained rags again.

We then went to the parking lot, which my dad said was just like a used car lot, except the cars were complementary on behalf of the hotel. I thought that was nice of them, considering we didn’t even stay there. I picked the one with the vanity plates that read “STUD4U”

I looked for Sadie on the ride back but all I could see was sand, some rocks and a skeleton with a ponytail.

It was the best thing I did all summer.