Saturday, August 13, 2011

I Feel Your Pain, Quasimodo, I Feel Your Pain.

I was at band camp for most of this week.  There was much use of sunblock and bug spray, and much yelling of "winning" and "courage" and much singing of The Cha Cha Slide.  We also talked about doing the can-can, which led us to compose sentences like this one:  I can can can-can. (Do you want to delete the repeated word?  NO.)

There was also a whole lot of talk about cannibalism, naked people falling out of hot air balloons, and dead people in cabins, but that's beside the point.

Thursday was the last day of band camp (my last band camp ever, forever, which actually made me a little sad) and I wanted to do something with all of my friends as a way of celebrating, so we decided to go swimming.

Where did we go swimming, you ask?  Why, at Sassafras Jones's grandparents' pond, that's where.

Everything started out just fine.  Everyone got to the pond safely, and all looked to be going well, until it actually came time to get into the water.

You see, something you may or may not know about me is that I am extremely afraid of the water.  I used to cry at every swimming lesson that my mom made me go to, and I even threw up at one.  Eventually, I did learn to swim a little bit, but I haven't actually gone swimming in a couple of years, so I'm more than a little rusty.

Anyway, everyone, the King/Archbishop of Marching Band, Sassafras Jones, the Drummer Boy, and the Destroyer, a lovely red-headed girl who plays the trumpet and is actually extremely hilarious, was in the deep water over by the diving board and such.  I did not want to jump into the water, so I decided that I was just going to swim out to where everyone was and hope for the best.

Only, there was a problem.

That problem was called "fish."

Now, it has been noted on this blog that I am not overly-enthusiastic about wildlife being overly close to me, so the fact that I literally saw a fish in the shallows swimming away from me freaked me out quite a bit. 

At that point, I realized that I was going to have to jump in, or at least use the ladder by the diving board, which, according to the Destroyer, had a big ol' spider on it.  Neither of this options were particularly pleasing to me.

Eventually, my blue noodle and I made it into the water with everyone else.  Everything was going fine, the Destroyer even went out and got a boogie board thing, then ran around the pond toward where the diving board was, earning her the title of David Hasselhoff.  For that short period of time, everything was going swimmingly (horrible pun intended.)

However, it didn't take long for things to take a turn for the worse.

It soon became apparent that I was not the only one who was not bestest buddies with the water.  In fact, the Drummer Boy was the only one amongst us who could actually swim, though Sassafras Jones was entirely capable of holding her own in the water.  Basically, what I'm getting at is that there were a lot of near-death experiences that night.

The Destroyer/David Hasselhoff also shared my fear of the fishies.  The following is a direct quote from her, after she though that a fish touched her leg.

"My hands are out of the water, my toes are out of the water, and I'm gonna die in this God-forsaken lake."

At which point I very nearly peed myself and/or drowned. 

I ended up sharing my noodle with the King/Archbishop of Marching Band, who almost drowned, then he got his own noodle, then I had to give my noodle to the Destroyer/David Hasselhoff, who was totally not living up to her namesake by also almost drowning.  At that point, I was in deep water without a floatation device and very little swimming ability, how could I survive?  Who could have given me the tools necessary to stay afloat when years of swimming lessons had failed me?  Only one woman:  Tyra Banks.

You see, I used to watch a lot of America's Next Top Model, and, at one point, on of the photo shoots that they did had the models floating on the surface of the pool.  I remembered Tyra teaching the girls how to float by arching their backs, and so that was what I did, and, darn it, it worked.  The only drawback was that, if I had actually drowned, I would have been in much the same position as if I was just floating.

After informing my friends of the one drawback of my nearly flawless plan and asking that they check that I was still alive every so often, they went and got me another noodle, only this one was a wimpy pink noodle that did not live up to my floatation device standards.

And, to top all this off, there were horseflies, and they were attacking us.

At one point, horseflies dive-bombed my head, causing my to seek refuge underwater.  However, when I did this, there arose in my already taxed calves a mighty pain.  An effing leg cramp.  The pain was so bad it caused me to exclaim: "son of a b****, this hurts" in a very loud voice so that everyone, including Sassafras Jones's dad, who was sitting by the campfire, could hear.

But I had no time to worry about Sassy's dad's opinion of me, for I was going to die.  The wimpy noodle was not enough to keep me afloat now that I had pretty much lost all use of my legs.  I was able to keep my head above water long enough to demand that someone get me a decent noodle, which they did, at which point I was perfectly fine, except for the whole "searing pain" thing.

I was totally fine, but the Drummer Boy had decided that I was some sort of danger to myself and incapable of safely remaining in the water, so he towed me back to shore, at which point I discovered that I couldn't really put any sort of pressure on my left leg.  So I just kind of chilled out in the shallows, hoping that no fish would touch me and getting grossed out by seaweed until my leg regained enough strength to be able to manage a hobble-type movement that would allow me to make my way to the campfire, where there was a picnic table that I could sit on.

We ate hobo pies and hot dogs and things.  At one point, Sassafras Jones's dad asked if their were any hot dogs left, but did it in a roundabout way.

Sassy's Dad:  Are there any more processed cow parts left?
Me:  *Questioning look*
Sassy's Dad:  Hot dogs.  They're just cow lips and udders
The Drummer Boy: Mmm, udders
The Destroyer/David Hasselhoff: They're udderly delicious.

Anyway, after we had finished discussing processed cow parts and such, we started focusing more on the mosquitoes.  One of them landed on the King/Archbishop of Marching Band, and the Destroyer/David Hasselhoff had some advice for him.

The Destroyer/David Hasselhoff: Tense up your leg; it'll explode.
Me:  You know this from experience?
The Destroyer/David Hasselhoff: Yes.

Then we walked around Sassafras Jones's grandparents' property and house and things and play songs on their grand piano, after which we went back outside to put all of the pooly things away and I got bit on the eyelid by a mosquito.  THE EYELID.  I didn't even know mosquitoes did that kind of thing.  I mean, I guess I knew, somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, that they had the capability of biting people's eyelids, but I think I just assumed that they would have the decency not to do it.  Apparently, though, I was wrong, because my eyelid was swelling up nicely, which, coupled with the limp caused by my wonky leg, made me look like Quasimodo, or every evil henchmen in every old movie ever.  I proceeded to refer to myself as "Igor" for the rest of the night.

Then, we all went home, and I'm just now remembering that I may have left caramel syrup in the back of my car and that I should maybe go and look for that.

1 comment:

  1. WHY did I miss out on this again? Right, cuz I'm an idiot.
    This is definitely one of your most hilarious posts. I love it. My parents might think I'm insane.

    ReplyDelete