If you don’t know who Wally is, you should probably read his reports from months one, two, three, four, five, and six first.

———-

St. Andrews State Park – January 11, 2013

Wally? Hello? Rib cage?

Wally?

Wally!

“Calm down, calm down. I’m here. I was just checking in on the boys working on Repair #26756.”

Repair #26756?

“You know, Repair #26756, that little rib cage issue.”

Little rib cage issue? I can barely breathe!

“You think I don’t know? I got boys working overtime down there. I got two crews of fellows on the hands. I got a few guys down on the cracked heels. The back is a bit tighter than I’d like. And I got a maintenance team working 24/7 on muscle repair.”

So what you’re saying is, you’re on it.

“I’m on it.”

Ok, because I can’t breathe and I hear that’s important.

“Whaa, whaa, whaa, want me to call you a whaaaaambulance you big baby? One little rib out-of-place and suddenly the world’s ending. Someone call the Mayans, they were a month early.”

Well, it’s been a pretty cushy month for a breakdown. We ate every piece of fried chicken in New Orleans, had gumbo and jambalaya, benoits, spent Christmas with the Dolphin Queen and her ham and pecan pie, then we ate our weight in pig on New Years. Come on.

“Cushy? Maybe I need to look that word up. Does cushy mean dodging barges and salties for our life? How about galavanting through Louisiana marshes and getting mauled by so many mosquitoes I thought we were at a blood drive? No? Maybe paddling out to islands we couldn’t even see so you could play Robinson Crusoe and look for footprints or perhaps paddling into the night for three straight days trying to beat that Christmas storm?”

Whatever, all I am saying is that this trip is supposed to leave me breathless, not unable to breathe.

“Oh, that’s cute. Were you thinking of that all day? No wonder you ran that blonde girl off.”

I didn’t run her off! What did you like her or something?

“Liked her? Loved her! Bring her back! Five miles a day, wake up late, camp when it is still light. What is not to love? I would take a hundred of her.”

But then it would take three months just to reach Tampa.

“Just in time for bikini season!”

You know we don’t look good in a bikini.

“That was one time and it wasn’t the right fit for our body type. We’re an apple not a pear.”

It was nice to have her around though, just to have someone to talk to.

“Um…hello?”

Someone who knows what it is like.

“I’m standing right here.”

Instead of being all alone.

“You know I can hear you, right?”

I was hoping you were back a the rib.

“I told you, we’re on it.”

Good, because it would be a real shame if a rib brought you down. A bear, a shark, something ferocious, maybe, something honorable, maybe, but not a random rib. That would be embarrassing.