Practicing Chivalry

Jenny's parents live in a house on the top of a cliff overlooking a bay on Bainbridge Island. To get down to the water, they have a tram that will take you down steadily in about two minutes. If the tram is out-of-order, or if it's at the bottom and you don't want to wait for it to come up to get you, you can take a neighbor's staircase down to the bulkhead.

Such was the case on Saturday afternoon. Jenny's dad was working on their boat, and we were supposed to go down to meet him so we could go pick up a crab pot we had placed a while earlier. Unfortunately, the tram was already at the bottom, and we didn't want to hang around to wait for it, so we took a neighbor's staircase. Once at the bottom, though, we realized that it was high tide, and that it would take some wading in front of the bulkhead to get over to the Black's dock since significant shrubbery and thorns blocked the way between the two properties. It didn't look that bad, but the beach in this particular area is very rocky and will easily scratch one's feet. Jenny felt confident because she had snowboots on (don't ask me why) that were supposedly water proof. I just had tennis shoes on, and wasn't fond of getting my feet cut up on rocks and dead clams, so I told her I would run back up and wait for the tram.

"No, Morgan, I can carry you," said Jenny prophetically. I then thought to myself that it was probably a waste of time to wait for the tram when I had already come all this way, so I decided I could wade barefoot, but Jenny still insisted on carrying my poor, soft feet over the sharp rocks. She started to wade through ankle deep water with an extra 200+ pounds on her back, and I thought she would give up at any moment and make me walk. But she kept trudging along without complaining until, before we realized it, we were in hip-deep water, and there was no turning back. We didn't realize the water got this deep so close to shore, but she couldn't set me down now because my cell phone was in my pocket, and would surely get ruined. Like a true soldier, Jenny continued to wade until I was safe and dry on her parent's bulkhead. Jenny, on the other hand, was soaked from the waste down, but had won even more respect from me.

Next time, we'll take the tram.