by Lorri Horn
“Okay,” Dewey’s dad encouraged him to continue.
“So, we go, ‘one, two, three, four, five, six, . . .’ and Max says ‘three’ and then everyone yells at him, and we have to start all over counting off to ten. Everyone is freezing cause we’re all wet, and the natatorium is like 65 degrees. When we get to ‘ten,’ Coach sends the group to a numbered lane and the counting starts again. You’d think this would be easy, but it’s not because at least three times some ding-dong messes up the counting and Coach has to start that group over. Finally, he’s gets all of us at our lanes.
“So, we’re all lined up shivering. Coach wants to make sure there are only six of us jumping in the pool at once. He blows his whistle and says, ‘Okay! Ones! Jump in!’ He figures the number ones from each lane would jump.
“Still following?” checked Dewey.
“I think so. He wanted one kid from each lane to jump in the pool and start to swim, right?”
“Right! And they do, but those bozos from lane one think he means them and all ten of them jump into that dinky lane at once!”
“That’s crazy!” Dewey’s dad replied and his brown eyes crinkled as he smiled.
“I know! Hilarious. Ryan and I just stood there laughing. It was a total traffic jam of elbows and knees hitting each other in lane one! I’m not kidding. There were feet inside of noses and heads underwater. Dad. Literally. There were ten boys on top of one another. Every time one picked up an arm or a leg they hit somebody,” Dewey laughed again thinking about it.
“Coach ran over to the edge of the pool, blowing his whistle and yelling. Then he just gave up and started cracking up.”
Dewey’s dad laughed. “That’s pretty good.”
“Well, I better go in. I’m supposed to be playing with Pooh in there.”
“Okay. I should be done in another thirty minutes or so.”
