The Day I almost died.

I almost died today. No, I'm not kidding. Me, a person that swims almost as good as a fish, almost drown today. As most of you know, today is Nathan and Forrest's actual birthday. So I took them to a water park called Wild River Country. It is only about 20-30 minutes from our house, and since we have season passes, it was really quite inexpensive. So we got there and we road some really fun slides.

There was the lightening fast and dark water slide called the Vortex, I shout out of that sucker like a bullet out of a gun. And man did I have to pull my suit out of the crack of my ass afterwards.

And then there was the slide they called Vertigo. I called it the toilet bowl. I know know what a piece of shit feels like when it gets flushed down a toilet. On this slide, you shoot down that long shoot into a bowl where you swirl around the bottom of the bowl a few times before you are deposited into the cesspool beneath. Unfortunately for me, it deposited me face first into the concrete side of the pool. But this isn't what almost killed me. Oh no folks, there was way more fun to be had.

Next we took a ride down the river rapids. With this rides there was a series of quick little shoot and you would hit a deeper swirling pool, then another quick shoot and then another deep pool, so on and so forth. Each time I shot down the quick rapid and hit the deeper pool, my tube would flip. I discovered that I stayed on the tube if I could manage to go down the rapid backwards. But if i went down if forward, by feet would hit that deep pool and I would face plant right into the water.

The next ride was the cyclone. This one was a lot of fun. The boys and I rode this one together on one of those giant for person tubes. Half of this ride is in darkness and the rest is in full daylight terror. It was really an exhilarating ride, but the forty foot climb to the top with one of those four person tubes, almost gave me a heart attack. But still, this is not where I almost died.

We then took our chances on a slide called white lightening. This slide scared the Bejesus out of me. I just knew I was going to pop up over the side and hit the ground at speeds of 80 miles per hour. But I didn't. Instead it was another one of those instant water enemas at the deposit pool at the bottom.

Last but not least, came the wave pool.

Don't let this picture fool you, that place was treacherous. When we first got there, it looked like one giant swimming pool. The waters were calm and peaceful. I asked the boys, "I thought we were going to the Wave pool?" They replied, "This is the wave pool." I replied, "Well I don't see any waves." They replied, "Just wait until the buzzer goes off." GReAT!!!! So, off they went into the deep end. We were in 8 feet of water. We were swimming around and having a good time, when all of a sudden a buzzer goes off. Forrest is terrified and he starts swimming as fast as he could to the shallow end before the waves hit. Nathan is a good 10 feet away from me when a huge wave crashes right over his head. He comes back up to the surface in a panic. I swim to him as fast and I can and grab him. It is virtually impossible to swim in 3 foot swells with 65 extra pounds strapped to your hip. I manage as best as I can to get to the ladder at the side of the pool. I pull Nathan up onto the ladder and attempt to keep my head and his head above water. The waves are literally relentless. They are pounding us against the wall of the pool and the ladder. I am frantically look back toward the area that Forrest swam into trying to see if he was alright, but I could not see him. The life guard, sat under his umbrella and kept blowing his whistle and pointing at me. Finally after doing this for about 5 minutes, he gets his sorry ass up off of his chair and comes to the ladder. He kneels down and tells me that I am not allowed to hold on to the ladder. I looked up at him as best as I could and I inform the little shit head that it is either hold onto the ladder and me and my son drown. I then asked him which would he prefer. He then asked me if I needed some help! "Yes, I need help." I asked him to grab my son. He asked me if I wanted him to pull Nathan out of the water. "Yes, get him out of the water. At least then I know that he is safe. I told him that if I had both arms free, I could probably make my way back to the shallow end. So he pulled Nathan out of the water and Nathan started crying. "Don't drown Mom, who would take care of us?" I told him I wasn't going to drown and then I told him to go look for his brother at the shallow end. I started swimming my way to the shallow end. By time I made it to the shallow end, the waves were over. I found Forrest and Nathan holding hand and crying. They thought I had drown. Forrest told me he could see us the whole time and he kept telling people that his mom and his brother were in trouble, but they kept ignoring him! I told the boys we were not going to do that one EVER again! So that is the story of how I almost died today. I just hope I don't get sick from all of the chlorinated water I swallowed.