By: Addie Lawrence and Elaine Best, Editors

A: It’s not surprising that a lake isn’t the most vibrant place in the middle of January. Nevertheless, Elaine and I decided that Lake Hartwell needed to be conquered on one lazy weekend. It started with a road trip down to Georgia with our companions Aubrey and Maggie.

E: Thankfully, Addie was not the one driving so I had a chance at life. We were fairly calm for the majority of the weekend, enjoying movies and board games alike (especially one very heated game of Life).  But the game we will always remember from that fateful weekend was Catchphrase, which we all thought would be delightful to play in the middle of a lake in winter with a decrepit paddleboat.

A: I’m not sure who suggested the paddleboat adventure, but soon, we were washing out a boat that had been lying upside down in the mud for months with buckets of water. We picked out the spiders, both living and dead, from the seats. Once the boat was sufficiently smeared in muddy water, we pulled it to the edge of the lake, our feet sinking into the mud. We dismounted, pulling ourselves into the boat and floating uncontrollably into the open water.

E: It’s important to note that Aubrey and Maggie were shoeless, Addie and I were completely covered in mud, and as we paddled we only went in circles so we had to use kayak paddles as we tried not to be eaten by the army of spiders that happily inhabited the decrepit paddleboat.

A: We then realized the boat was severely unbalanced when water breached the sides and splashed Elaine with icy vengeance. We decided to do a quick seat swap to better balance the boat, Elaine crossing over me while I crossed under her.

E: Luckily, I learned in Girl Scouts how to switch places with your partner in a canoe. Unluckily, I learned how to do that about twelve years ago and the execution that day didn’t quite go according to plan.

A: Somewhere in the seat-changing, Catchphrase-ing chaos, or perhaps in the brief moment where we decided to race a couple of ducks by flailing our paddles maniacally, my phone slipped out of my pocket and plunged into the deep and unrelenting water. The last thing my phone saw before drowning was a Snapchat of Elaine and I screaming while we slammed into a dock.

Moral of the story:

E: Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Or ducks.

A: Keep your phones on the docks, friends, but if you’re going to lose them, then at least have a good story to tell.