The Water Weenie

Truly a thing of beauty

One toy that lasted for quite a few years and got plenty of on label and off label use was the water weenie. It is a long tube with two stabilizing pontoons that you inflate and then ride on while it is toed behind a boat. It was supposed to be a nice family ride for kids and adults together but my dad liked to give our little bodies the stress test with it, and we loved going a long for the ride. The plan was that we would be towed out to where we couldn't hurt ourselves or others in the event, I mean when the event, of our wild ejection occurred. Then my dad would spool out plenty of tow line so he had some material to work with then he would get us going in one direction and then turn so quickly that it released tension on the rope. We would slowly start to drift to a stop while he brought the boat around in several tight circles putting slack in the rope and a drastic change in direction. Then he would hit the throttle in the opposite direction of where we were pointed and try and get to Mach 1 before he hit the end of the rope. This little dance took about a minute and in that time you had to wait and practice your hand and thigh squeeze in anticipation of the massive jolt that was about to come. The rope that was pooled in circles around the weenie would start to tighten and then the last twenty feet would pull out of the water so quickly it would sizzle as the water was forced out of the rope. Then Wham! Your whole body accelerated to ten or twenty miles per hour in less then a second and you either flew off or rode it out because after the initial snap the weenie was incredibly easy to ride. The victims would be picked up and the survivors got to ride another time until they also were ripped off. As far as off label uses go we would sometimes fill up the weenie and ride it on the trampoline or jump onto it from the tramp like a cowboy in an old western onto his horse. The very funniest use for it though was discovered by accident when the weenie was half inflated and our over amorous dog Beau tried to make the half flaccid weenie his girlfriend. He would jump on the mostly limp nose cone and get right to work on the lovemaking and my brother or I would jump hard on the opposite end instantly tightening the nosecone and assaulting our dog's private parts. He would be thrown back and be confused for a little bit, look around and then remount the now limp nose cone to attempt to finish his consummation. We laughed so hard at this that we were nearly crying and Beau just seemed happy to have a girlfriend.