The Second Time

When my mom in high school and/or college, she was on a water ballet team(now called synchronized swimming). Since parents like to push their hobbies onto their children when they are still impressionable, I learned how to swim when I was 4 or 5. Since then, my mom has taught me the proper way to dive and do certain strokes. I can even float on my back and kick both legs in the air before gracefully sinking under, toes pointed the whole time. Random talents that I don't think many of you knew I have.

Anyhow, the point of all that is, that I am a very strong swimmer, and have been for most of my life. Most of my life isn't enough, since I almost drowned when I was a youngster.

My family was swimming at a family friend's house when I was 3 or 4. I had my inner tube, and was geeked to get in the water. The day was going without a hitch, until I decided to climb on the air mattress in the pool.

As I tried to get on, my inner tube came off. That's actually quite impressive because I was a fat little kid, and I'm not really sure how it was able to slip over my belly. It did though. I didn't worry too much about it because I was holding onto the mattress at the time.

Somehow, in my uncoordinated little kid state, I lost my grip, and sank to the bottom of the pool. People say your life passes before your eyes as you drown, but I don't remember that happening. Maybe because I hadn't really had much of a life at that point in time. All I remember is being on the bottom of the pool thinking, this isn't good.

The next thing I knew, my brother was rescuing me. It sounds really heroic until you realize how he got me out of the pool. He grabbed me by my hair, and pulled me out of the water. Yes, I wanted to kill him at that moment. I wasn't sure which was worse, drowning in 4 feet of water, or having my entire body weight being supported by my hair.