Cheri,
I had to laugh when I read your canoe story!
Right before my husband and I got married, we went canoeing on the Charles River in Boston. I was in front, he was in back and we were weaving back and forth all over the place, not making any progress - I kept yelling at him to steer and he kept telling me the person in the front steers! I couldn't figure out how a man in the Navy would not know how to steer a canoe, but it turns out he was having fun watching me working my butt off trying to keep us on a straight course while he just sat there relaxing.
When I found this out, I used that oar to get him soaking wet, before putting it down in the canoe and refusing to help him anymore. I knew eventually he'd get hungry so he'd paddle us back to shore. His sister and her husband were in another canoe, way ahead of us and said all they could hear was James laughing and me yelling at him! I'm sure the other boaters and people on the shore thought we were crazy!
And we used your logic too - if we could survive that, we'd probably survive marriage!
Lori