FREESTYLE

When people ask me if I can swim, I always say no. Technically, I guess, I can prevent myself from dying while in the water, and some might call that being able to swim; however, I don't really count treading water and the ability to do a pitiful interpretation of the doggie paddle as "swimming" per se. 

Despite my utter lack of aptitude, my parents put me on the Chapel Beach Swim Team every fucking year of my childhood. And they sent me to a Silton Swim Camp where in the first week, not only did some kid take a shit on the huge bouncy balls we got to play with during our lunch hour, but I was also promptly and embarrassingly beaten in a race in the pool by a girl with a broken arm. Like she was literally wearing a cast. With a plastic bag taped around it. In the water. And she won. By a lot. Let that sink in for a minute...

Honestly, that was not even a blip on my radar of swim-related trauma compared to having to attempt to compete in swim meets for Chapel. Time and time again they made me swim in front of every kid I knew and all of their cheering, smiling parents. And after every single meet, I'd get an Honorable Mention ribbon. This went on and on for weeks in the summer that I turned 7. One day, after a meet, my mother asked me why I was crying (really mom?). Between breaths I managed to choke out..."Because they...keep...giving me...Horrible Mentions." 

Fuckin' A.