A Rather Inconvenient Lifestyle

Matt texted me yesterday, while he was finishing up laundry, and I was on the bus to the grocery store, seated next to a man with possibly the worst body odor I’ve ever encountered (and that is saying a lot since we are pretty ripe ourselves now that we live on a boat and only shower every 2-3 days – who wants to come visit?!?)

His text read: “We should have named our blog ‘A Rather Inconvenient Lifestyle’.” 

That is the truth. 

This was how our afternoon went:

We loaded up four loads of laundry into our dinghy to travel to a dock that is probably two miles away. It rained on us the entire way.

On the way there, we passed under a bridge that has a pretty impressive current. As we approached the bridge, a boat (much larger than our dinghy) went flying by, sending a two-foot wake our direction. Matt tried to avoid the huge swells, but with the combination of current and wake, we were thrown into the bridge supports. Scared the living hell out of me. Everyone remained on-board (thankyoubabyjesus)… and Matt did an amazing job keeping control of the dinghy. I probably peed my pants, but it was raining so who knows. We made it to the dock in town just as the major downpour started. Yay!

With a borrowed key-card from our friends at Sailing the Kraken, we unloaded and schlepped the four loads of laundry a half-mile (we got lost – probably only two blocks away, but we like to go around ‘n circles – ba-dum bum) to the laundry “room” – which was smaller than the size of my laundry rooms in our last three homes – and held only two washers and two dryers. One of which was occupied. And we had four loads. Sigh.

We put one load in and waited. (And by waited, I mean we had a beer at the bait and tackle shop next door.) When I went to switch the load to the dryer, the lady who was moving her laundry from the occupied washer to the dryer informed me that the other dryer was broken and didn’t actually dry the clothes. Sigh.

So instead of waiting an hour to do one load at a time, we put the clean, wet clothes in a trash bag, and schlepped all of the laundry back to the dinghy (only two blocks this time), and cruised two miles over to the other laundry room that we knew had four washers. It started raining half-way there. Of course it did.

We schlepped the same four loads up to the laundry room (that has no bait and tackle shop next door with beer), and loaded up the washers (and one dryer.) Matt took the dinghy over to the marina office to pick up a package while I sat with the laundry. 30 minutes later, after we moved the clothes to the dryer, I headed to the bus stop to catch the bus to the grocery store, leaving the laundry for Matt to finish.

I apparently wasn’t standing at the actual bus stop when I waived down the driver, but lucky for me he still let me on. With only one option for seating, I ended up at next to the smelly man.

In case you haven’t read any of our blogs, I get motion sick pretty easily. Yes, I know we live on a boat. And yes, I’ve puked many times over the side. But here’s the deal… smells are THE. WORST. Like, thinking about it right now, as I type this, is making me queasy. Anyway, as I was contemplating the best way to hold my breath for the 20-minute bus ride to the grocery store, Matt texted me his wisdom:

“We should have named our blog ‘A Rather Inconvenient Lifestyle’.” 

I assume he was folding laundry. Or bagging laundry for the ride back to the boat in case it started raining again. Or trying to work from a laundry room. Or just realizing that we left at 1pm and probably wouldn’t be back until 6 pm. But I didn’t respond to ask because I was trying to survive the bus ride without breathing. However, I was in full agreement with the sentiment.

After he finished laundry, Matt and the boys took the laundry back to the boat and unloaded it all. Then he turned around and headed back to the dinghy dock to pick me up with all of the groceries.

There is no Uber in Key West. And I had way too many groceries to carry them to the bus stop, so I called for a taxi. We have taken a taxi once already – and they charged a flate rate by the person (and the boys counted as people. sigh.) We paid $6.50 each for that taxi ride… ridiculous, I know. But I figured a $6-$7 fare to get me back to the dinghy was worth it so I didn’t have to carry the groceries.

Apparently, the flat rate is for groups of people, not just one person?? This dude instead charged me by the minute/mile/I’m not sure, but my total (to go 1.9 miles!) was $13. This guy helped me load/unload groceries, so I didn’t want to be a scrooge and not tip, but I can’t believe I paid $15 for less than a two mile trip down the road… UGH!!!

We loaded the dinghy for the ride back to the boat. The sun had set and it was dark. And I was fuming from the price of the cab ride. And everyone was hungry. But it wasn’t raining, so there’s that.

As soon as we got back to the boat, the boys sprung into action to help unload the dinghy. They helped put away groceries, and were happy to devour all of the food I just bought. Austin even tried like three new foods. And at the end of the evening, Zach said that he had so much fun today!! Apparently, riding around in the dinghy in the rain, slamming into a bridge, and doing laundry is FUN! Or inconvenient. Depends on how you look at it. 🙂