I am no insurance agent, but I would have to assume that the most important question you can ask the new owner of a lakeside property is “How will you be preventing your adolescent and/or college-aged children from accessing the property?” If the answer is anything less than “A moat, a private paramilitary force and 16 plasma turrets,” you probably should set fire to the policy application right then and there. Frankly, I’m always baffled by how some friends’ parents can be so nonchalant about giving away the keys to the lake house for the weekend.
“Oh,” I imagine they say, “It’s so refreshing that my son has taken such a keen interest in the outdoors. I’m sure his unimpaired judgment, plus eight hours of boat school, will be sufficient to navigate my $450,000 cigarette boat through a crowded harbor to the center of the lake, where he and other fine young dignitaries will enjoy pitchers of sun tea and discuss literature.”Of course, their son immediately group-texts his entire frat with a list of nearby keg vendors, and the Dream Team of locally notorious skanks with instructions to park on the next street over, thus duping the ruthless Lake City Police Department. Rest assured, he’s been here before.
By the end of the weekend, the aftermath looks a little like this: $300 in fireworks damage to the siding, $4,500 to the boat upholstery, $16,000 worth of engine repairs, $3,800 in bail, two soiled couches, one broken bed, a vaporized propane grill, $400 in Plan-B purchases and one unplanned pregnancy courtesy of a guy who works at a bait-n-tackle shop.Of course, in a lot of other ways, it was frickin awesome. Everyone should be able to live this dream at least once. But to do so, you’ll need to start hanging out around rich idiots.
If your family is from the outer suburbs, you’re probably already reading this from your lake house, you butt. But if you don’t know any rich idiots personally, consider applying for a summer mall job at the nearest Bang & Olufsen. Rich dudes get extremely emotional about their home theater solutions, so with the right balance of customer service skills and bullstuffting about “upper treble purity,” you could be on the fast track to a wedding invitation. In all likelihood, this wedding will be held at a lake house, near a hardware store that copies keys in an hour.
But before you embark on your summer adventures, remember these three rules:
- Captain Jack Sparrow is drunk all day, but he never drives. And he stays away from the outboard motor.
- Lake cops are like regular cops … just more so.
- No whaling.
Ahoy, Socialites.
