flailying.

I watched everyone else do it. It looked so simple and so easy. Except everyone else was either flailing or flying off like little lemmings, with little cute "ahs!" and "oooahs," just like the little cartoons on the game Rick used to play. When Greg finally gave me permission to get off the bike and change into my suit, I was so excited to try it! I was going to show everyone how it's done. First I had to warm up, and hope that they were still doing the drill. They were!

I climbed up the ladder and stood on top of the high diving boards. Then it hit me what I was about to do. I started to breathe a little more quickly, panic squeezed my heart. We had folded up one of the mats we stretch on and put it on the end of a diving board. Then there was a hose squirting water on it, so to make it really slippery. It was simple enough: Run at full speed onto the makeshift slip'n'slide, and do a perfect dive into the water.
Two keys to this drill: Keep your body low, because if you jump onto the slip and slide and a steep angle, the board will push you up, causing your legs to fly over your head and make you back flop. Hard.
Key number two: If you do key number one successfully, keep your body TIGHT in line, and you'll be just fine! Simple, right?

Right.

I look up to realize I'm the last one going, and EVERYONE is at the bottom, watching ME. "Okay, this is it. I'm finally going to do something diving-oriented well." I visualized my approach, the landing, everyone cheering.

Well, everyone did cheer... I ran maybe a little too hard, flopped onto the slip'n'slide from a little too steep of an angle. The diving board belched me out, I thought I was doing great until I realized that I was facing the ceiling...and I hit the water with a perfect-10 backflop.

Wait for it...wait for it... I pop up, everyone's cheering....wait for it...wait for it... my colossal tidal wave hits the gutters and disappears...wait for it...

aha!

OWWWWWWWWWW!

But, of course, I don't let anyone see that it really, really, really hurt. I smile and say, "well, I'll have to work on that." And inside my body was screaming at me, "NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"