The Bump in The Boat

For the longest time my siblings and I were very close during our childhoods. We would play together all the time, outside mostly. Neither snow or the battering heat of summer would stop us. Heavy rain would discourage the four of us, we would stare out the picture window and watch the puddles form.
Afterwards we would explore the wet world and all the creepy crawlies that the rain had washed up. Once, my older brother ate an entire worm.  During a particularly hot summer, my sister was dubbed the chieftain of our make-believe tribe. On cooler days, my younger brother and I would spend a lot of time playing croquet entirely the wrong way.
We had owned a plastic turquoise sandbox at the time. This sandbox was particularly fun to play in because it was shaped like a boat with a working steering wheel and horn.
During a particularly fun sailing trip a large bump appeared in the center of the floor. The sand has been emptied out so the bottom was only a thin layer of plastic. The four of us were incredibly confused so we mustered all of our toddler-strength to moving the boat over. Incredibly, we all became face to face with a large (but then again, everything was big back then) groundhog! It looked at the four of us with disinterest and then made its way to the end of the yard. I followed it, trotting behind it slowly and too afraid to get any closer. Eventually it made it to the fence and squeezed itself underneath, never to be seen again. We were all shocked, and it was by far the coolest creature we’ve ever encountered in our long days outdoors.