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Glorious summer, season of the colorful bathtub toy. Knowing this will offend some, I say it anyway. The bright-colored objects atop some vehicles are overgrown, adult-size tub toys. 

When I was 10 I had an armload of cheap plastic toys reserved for tub use. My mother, heartily approving of anything to keep me quiet, gratefully indulged my toy passion with 10 cent boats, rockets and critters. 
A dollar’s worth of plastic junk went a long way toward satisfying my little needs to captain ships, explore underwater or become Noah managing an impossible menagerie from prehistoric dinos to modern-day farm animals. 

Who cared? I was 10, able to find contentment sinking ships, drowning beasts or gawking amazedly at fingertips gone puffy and pale as death. Much later in life when a retired attorney acquaintance pointed proudly to a red kayak atop his Volvo, I cheered appreciatively. He beamed. I continued, “Most of my boyhood tub toys were gray plastic.” 

His smile ended.

It was/is snotty, rude or even snobbish for me to call watercraft belonging to another a mere tub toy. I have my reasons, ones more substantive than simple bright coloration of the plastic toys in question. 

Of course a modern kayak is by far larger than a tub toy, right? So I lose, right? 

Not so fast. In a word, use defines toy. If employed for play a thing is a toy. If played with in or on water it is a water or tub toy. In watercraft, size attaches to play. A paddleboard or inflatable air mat isn’t found in use mid Superior or Atlantic. 

The attorney (I confess enjoying it) I mocked for his kayak had, I do not doubt, visions of himself kayaking as hunter of seals. But unless dead or blind a seal would have seen the distress yellow plastic hunter a mile away. The absence of a harpoon is another clue saying plaything not work boat. 

True, I know less than a thimble of seal hunting knowledge, but I’d put money that a single seal could easily outweigh hunter and kayak combined. My guess is other hunters were involved in bringing back the prize to an established, fixed camo location. Were the entire contents of the camp moved there by kayak? Probably not. 

Kayaks aren’t known as cargo carriers. The capacity and capability of the kayak form is well expressed by those moderns among us who champion them. There’s, no doubt, challenge and skill mastering the roll, but maybe this skill is a little less impressive when mastered in temperate waters lacking of ice. 

Another toy feature of the plastic kayak is how often it shows up for-fun running little rapids here and there. Not many rapids are available on the ocean. But if you’ve access to rapids and have a suitable toy, then why not? That’s fine, have fun and enjoy. 

But what I see in the kayak is no more than a bright-colored, adult-size tub toy not for any reason to be taken seriously.

That sounds severe, doesn’t it? Telling someone (particularly an officious barrister) they’re showing inordinate pride over mastery of a plastic toy isn’t all that mean, is it? 

A good comeback at me might be firmly asking in rebuttal style “Can you do better?” Yes. And I have. Two books drawn from personal experience on canoe handling give some credential. It’s not braggadocio or meanness to remind aficionados of the limitations of the kayak that has lent itself so very well to use as a toy. 

Poor things have very little freeboard, essentially using the submerged portion of hull as keel. With limited cargo and low passenger capacity and what do you have? A play boat. A toy. 

Do I lie? I’m not going into boat ins and outs, but the ability or not to trim the vessel to suit wind and weather is something largely missing in kayaks. I’m apt to be called names after coming down on the wrong side of the kayak clan. A risk I accept with a smile and gladly. 

I am OK with kayakers being angry with me, especially if that dislike stems from the reminder their toys are limited in use and potentially quite dangerous. 

Why are kayakers often advised to use helmets? Might have something to do with an unstable hull form that’ll turn the user upside down, bringing noggin to rapids rock. A thing can be a fun toy and dangerous at the same time, can’t it? I think that’s worth remembering.

In my view, teasing, prodding or annoying holders of pompous preconceptions (particularly when threatening to overshadow mine) is at the smallest a lesser flaw than judging, condemning or banning. An appropriate reminding prod may be needed, therefore no flaw at all. It’s the degree, isn’t it, and how seriously we take our positions. Thinking we understand something does not mean we do. 

A whitewater haystack in a rapids looks like a watery peak when it’s more a vertical hole filled with aerated water unable to float a hull. Enter, you sink.

Critical exam is more than shows of cleverness. It says look afresh. It says ask. Is there an important distinction between job and vocation? What’s the distinction between multi-ethnic and multi-cultural? What makes something a toy? Which distinctions might matter and why?

A clue. From long-past Nero’s day, Petronius is credited writing the fragmentary, scandalous Satyricon. The 1959 Arrowsmith translation contains something timely. I paraphrase – “None would mind this claptrap if it put our students on the road to ability. Instead, their sham heroics and noisy performances make them sound as if they live in another world.” 

Sound at all familiar? I’ll not praise or recommend the Satyricon. Why would I when it is very much an example of what it complains of? But, there is some use recognizing the ancient past in the present. Ask, where lies the value in mastering a toy versus developing skill? 

A thing may begin as play, but ability in observation or action is nothing trivial or trifling.