Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/2701
at the helm 8 Houseboatmagazine.com The other day as I was driving home with my kids, a song on the radio came on by Daniel Powter. I don't know enough about this guy to make a judgment call on whether or not he's a one-hit wonder, but you've got to admit his song "Bad Day" is kind of catchy. With the unstable economy I'm sure a lot of people are singing along to this song, but I had to laugh when my two- and four-year-old started to sing along as best as they could. "Cause you had a bad day, you're taking one down, you sing a sad song just to turn it around… you had a bad day. You had a bad day." What's the worst thing that can go wrong for a toddler – lose your favorite blanket or be forced to share Lightening McQueen with your sibling? Yeah, life at that age is far from hard and so I think that's what made me laugh when I heard them singing their "hard times" away. But this summer I did come across a dumb-luck story that involved a shiny clean houseboat and a crazy mishap. Just to give you some background information, the house- boat owners are the type that truly work hard to keep their boat looking like new. It was a restored classic that had a lot of character and to enter you must remove your shoes—no exceptions! And don't even think about putting your drink down without using a coaster; that's just unforgivable in their eyes. But considering how nice this boat has been restored, I can't say that I blame them. So what could possibly go wrong after you've spent hours cleaning the houseboat and getting it all ready for the House- boat magazine staff to come for a visit? How about an oil bath from your neighbor? Less than 30 minutes from the time we were supposed to arrive to do a story on this vintage houseboat, their dock neighbor decided to work on his houseboat engine next to them. Every marina has a weekend warrior neighbor like this; you just hope his slip isn't next to yours, but in this case it was. The engine had been underwater so he was attempting to bring it back to life. As the story goes, when he cranked the engine, oil came out in every direction, including a nice splash on the side of their just washed houseboat. But the oil didn't stop there. It landed on their top deck too and the oil blast was so great it actually got on the houseboat two slips down as well. Now talk about a bad day: this could be the platform for Powter's video to his popular song. Obviously the do-it-yourself mechanic felt horrible, but only felt worse when he found out Houseboat magazine was coming for a visit. In fact, he didn't believe the owners at first because it just seemed too hard to actually believe that his timing could be so bad. But with a little scrubbing and a quick reaction time, they were able to get it cleaned up before we ever set foot on the dock. The houseboat owners were still a little shook up about the whole experience, the mechanic couldn't stop apologizing and me, well, I thought their "'cause you had a bad day" story would make for a fun column. Brady L. Kay Editor, Houseboat Magazine And you think your Day Was Hard "The oil blast was so great it actually got on the houseboat two slips down as well."