What is it about swimming pools that tuckers you out? Is it because your metabolism has to work overtime to keep your body temperature above freezing? Is it because of the water resistance, because moving from here to there takes disproportionately more energy? Is it because entering a swimming pool turns you into a five-year-old, and children, by nature, sleep better and deeper than adults?
Last night we were at the dress rehearsal/BBQ/pool party for Joel's best friend Steve, who is getting married on Sunday to the lovely Amber (Steve + Amber = Stamber. Hilarious, no?). Because the pool belonged to Steve's parents' neighbors, and it was full of youth group for most of the evening, we didn't get in until around 8:30 and it hadn't been a warm day anyways, so the pool was freakin' freezing. H'anyways, the boys lost no time in making 'stackers,' ie. seeing how many bodies they could stack onto one pair of shoulders. It took about ten minutes of scrambling and re-arranging bodies and deeper-no-shallower-no-deeper-it'll-be-easier-no-shallower-it'll-look-awesomer before they got three-high. Boys have this innate bigger-and-better in them, so it wasn't long after their triumph that they were trying to figure out a way to stack four-high which, if you're just going one on top of the other, is stupid and impossible, but if you build a pyramid, is do-able, but you can't build the pyramid on all fours because that's an eighth-grade cheerleading squad, and it has to be in, like, the shallowest part of the pool because, awesome, but if you fall, fall forward or you'll die. So three guys get on their knees and link arms, and two guys hop up so they're sitting on the shoulder-shelves in between the three guys (this would be waaaaaaay easier if I had the pictures, but Alyson was taking them and she said she'd Facebook them but apparently not everyone is as keen as me), and then the three guys on the bottom stood up. Ok, picture this now. Not a one of Joel's friends is less than six feet tall, and we've got the three biggest on the bottom, standing now, and then two guys sitting on their shoulders, so this tower is one-and-a-half guys tall, and then Kurt gets on Kevin's shoulders (Kevin is the free-floating stabilizer and booster, and has arthritis and diabetes, which is kind of irrelevant except that he was always trying to be in on the bottom of things, and someone would invariably yell out 'You have arthritis and diabetes!' but he was the bottom of the first three-high stack, so I guess we can all eat our words), sorry, so Kurt is sitting on Kevin's shoulders and then he stands on Kevin's shoulders so that he can clamber up on top of the second-level's shoulders and sit there, and hey presto! We have a standing pyramid! And then everyone falls forwards because to fall backwards is death, and swims over to see the picture and it's awesome but you know what would be even awesomer? If Kurt STOOD UP on the top shoulders. RAD! So the guys on the bottom switch it up a bit, because being in the middle hurts most and it had taken at least three tries to get Kurt up in the first place, but now it's a science, and so this and that all happens again and Kurt shimmies up off of Kevin's shoulders and gets a foot-hold, and now he's STANDING on the shoulders of two guys who are sitting on the shoulders of three other guys, who are standing in the pool. Everyone falls in, and man, that was awesome. But you know what would be awesomer still? If Kurt sat back down, and someone else sat on his shoulders! But who is left? Kevin is the stabilizer, and everyone else is in the pyramid. As if with one mind, all eyes turn to where I'm huddled by the one warm jet, shivering and hooting and shouting encouragements. So the pyramid builds itself again, and then I'm standing on Kevin's shoulders, but this is at least twelve feet of body by now, and Kevin's only six foot, and I'm five-something, and from my perch on Kevin's shoulders I can just barely reach Kurt's shoulders, and so I'm clambering up but it's all slippery bodies and Kurt has nothing to hold on to and I have nothing to hold on to except him, and so we all go down in a mess of limbs, but this can totally be done, for reals, guys. So Joel, who's tallest, comes out from the bottom of the pyramid to act as my boost, and Kevin (of the arthritis and diabetes) takes his place and again with the pyramid, and this time I'm almost up but I slip on someone's arm and fall backwards and graze my back on the bottom of the pool and my boobs fall out of my top but I'm underwater so it's ok and I shove them back in, and we almost had it that time, but it's hard because even on Joel's shoulders, I'm only just as high as Kurt, and I can't use his body to climb up his body, because he's so precariously perched, and it's like I'm standing on a wall and trying to get my legs over another wall that's up by my shoulders but without touching that wall because it'll fall, and then I'm stepping on the shoulders of the guys on the second row, and Joel is shoving my feet from below, and the tower is wavering in the breeze and the guys on the bottom are grunting and suddenly I've got a leg over Kurt's shoulder and one arm in the air, and Alyson snaps the picture and we all fall into the water and I land with my knee on Ben's back and someone puts their fist in my eye and everyone surfaces groaning and cheering, because that's a four-tiered pyramid, and it's never been done.
It was about two-and-a-half minutes before they were searching around for something else that had never been done.
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