That Time A Homeless Man Gave Me A Lifejacket
At my K-8 school every year the eighth graders get to go on a river trip and we kayak down the San Jaun river. In order to prep for the trip, my parents bought a kayak so that I could get used to kayaking. Before this I was absolutely terrified of boats of any kind. I still kind of am, but not as much.
So anyway, on the weekends we would kayak around our local river. I would paddle upstream and float back down.
Around my fifth or sixth time going back and forth I became really aware that I was being watched at a certain point. I wrote it off as paranoia, because that's usually where a story like this would end. I keep going.
"Miss?"
Fuck. So okay, I was being watched. I turn to see this obviously homeless man on the shore. He's got a dog with him, and he's holding something. I don't paddle towards him, because scary, but I dont paddle away like I want to, because that would be rude.
"Did you see a man down there?"
He points down the river to the area where my family was. There was a man there with his dogs playing with them in the water, so I told him yes.
"Can you take this to him?"
He holds up a life jacket. Um. Well I guess so. Like, I'm not going to paddle over to this man, but there's no reason I cant take it to the other guy, right? This guy clearly senses how hesitant I am, so he offers to toss it to me. I pull it from the water and thank him for some reason, mostly because I panicked, and then I paddled back. The guy wasn't there when I got back, and my parents are wondering where I got this life vest from.
I told them and we left.
We kept the life jacket, because it fit.
