It was a scorching summer day and I had nothing better to do than sit on my lazy butt and enjoy my slightly air conditioned house. Out of nowhere Jef called me.
“Want to go swimming at the rock quarry?” he asked. In the three second pause before my reply I contemplated all of the pros and cons of going swimming. First, I realized that I would have to take a shower when I got home, and I had already taken one that day. Oh well, no big deal, but then I remembered sunburns. Summer had just begun, so I hadn’t had the chance to get a good burn. Like I said, I pondered all of this in a matter of three seconds or so and for lack of good judgment my reply was yes.
“I’ll pick you up in five minutes,” he said as he ended the call. In those five minutes I managed to put on my fluorescent, out-grown swimming trunks and lather myself up real nice with some cheap sunscreen. Jef honked as he pulled into my driveway and I hurried to his truck. As I got in he took advantage of this opportunity to ridicule my complexion. He told me that everyone else was already out there and we headed to the quarry.
When we arrived Austin was doing donuts in his truck that threatened to explode every time the accelerator was touched. The dust finally settled and we headed down to the water to enjoy our afternoon. We were all standing on the bank waiting for someone to be the first to jump in when we realized it would be exhilarating to jump off of a rock wall into the water. The ledge was about twenty feet from the surface of the water and was rather intimidating at first. We all slid into the water and started checking our landing zone to make sure it was deep enough and there was nothing lurking underwater ready to impale careless children. After clearing the water of dangerous items such as rocks and dead bodies, we started jumping off of the wall. After our little adrenaline rush we came up with the idea for a mudslide. When we were jumping into the water someone landed on a bucket and we decided to use it to soak the bank.
The bank was about ten feet long and declined to the water at about a forty-five degree angle. For about fifteen minutes, everyone contributed to this haggard mudslide. Once finished we took turns sliding into the water. With every slide the bank dried out a bit so after you went down you had to lube it up for the next person. At one point Jef was standing up on the bank while everyone was splashing it and some idiot thought it would be funny to hurl mud at him. Within seconds all of us were slinging hand-crafted mud balls at Jef. I sank down to gather some more mud when I heard someone gasp in fear. Jef is about 250 pounds of man and he was letting out some sort of battle cry while sprinting down the bank. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but what did was a mud covered man-beast using gravity and momentum as a weapon. At that point I took advantage of being the “chosen-one” and used a matrix style move to dodge this catastrophe. I submerged myself into the water and braced for impact. Somehow Jef missed me, and I heard him destroy the water beside me. From underwater it sounded extremely painful. I emerged from the water to the sound of laughter and in my disbelief I even joined in. In the midst of this “bonding” moment I thanked God that I was in one piece. We carried on with our fun that day and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that near paralysis experience.