The Rehearsal Dinner Barge
A listing 60-foot river barge strung with paper lanterns on the Danube outside Budapest at 8:47 PM, where the catering crew has just discovered the anchor chain is dragging and the current is pulling them toward the Szabadság Bridge at roughly one knot.
Katla — yes, the same Katla from Iceland — is getting married again (the first one technically counted, but she wants a 'do-over with dry shoes'), and Double and Bust have once again been recruited as co-best-men for the rehearsal dinner, this time on a rented river barge that seats 35 and is currently seating 52. The anchor slipped seven minutes ago and the barge is drifting south at 1.2 knots; at this rate it will collide broadside with a bridge pylon in approximately 26 minutes. The barge captain, who is 74 and has been drinking apricot pálinka since sundown, says he can restart the diesel engine but needs someone to manually unkink a fuel line in the engine compartment, which is currently knee-deep in Danube water. Double wants to wade into the engine room and fix the fuel line so the captain can power them to shore. Bust wants to radio the port authority, get everyone into life vests, and evacuate to a passing sightseeing boat that's been circling them taking photos for the last four minutes.
“Last time I let you handle Katla's wedding, the officiant got baptized by a glacier — I'm going below deck, I'm unkinking the line, and this woman is getting ONE dry ceremony.”
“You want to perform engine surgery waist-deep in river water on a boat captained by a man who can't pronounce 'throttle' anymore, while a sightseeing boat with 80 empty seats is RIGHT THERE?”
Double waded into the engine compartment, found the kink in the fuel line by feel alone because the lightbulb shorted out the moment his knees hit the water, and unjammed it with a corkscrew borrowed from the catering table — the diesel coughed to life with 90 seconds to spare, and the 74-year-old captain, suddenly lucid with adrenaline, executed a clean starboard turn that sent the barge gliding past the Szabadság Bridge pylon close enough to scrape off a paper lantern. Katla didn't even stop her toast.
We are eleven feet from a bridge pylon and you're taking a BOW — I can see the paint transfer on the hull, Double, that is EVIDENCE.
Told you — corkscrew, diesel engine, same basic concept, you just gotta believe in threading.