I was telling someone about my near death, caught in a riptide, traumatizing experience in Salvador, Brazil this summer (I went with my two sisters in August....2 words...awesome).
ANYWAY - the point is, as I re-tell my reasoning for having a love/hate relationship with the ocean and re-live the drama, all for a story's sake, it is without fail that 90% of the people interject mid story and say, "Don't you know you're supposed to swim parallel with the shore?"
WHERE WAS I THE DAY EVERYONE IN THE WORLD LEARNED THIS TRICK? Did I ditch that day? Was I sick? Loitering in the halls? I have no idea, but for some reason, everyone seems to know about it except me. For the 7 of you out there who still don't know, the trick is this; if you are ever caught in a riptide, you are supposed to swim parallel to the shore, and eventually you will be pushed back into shore rather than exhaust yourself in the futile effort of trying to swim directly back in.
It would have been PRETTY helpful to have a tip like that stored somewhere in the nicely organized files of my head under "R" for Riptide, "A" for Avert Death, "H" for How Not To Freak Out Right Now, or "N" for Nemesis, Ocean.
Well, in case you don't know the end of the story - I survived. It was actually my sister and I out there....she survived too. Luckily a lifeguard was keeping tabs on us as he saw us get too far out, (not in a cool hippie way) and he came out to get us. He probably waited so long because he figured eventually we'd start swimming parallel to the shore.
We both lived to drink another Guarana, see another sunset and make another fishy face.
(notice how my head is being pulled back into my neck and
my eyebrows are going vertical. It is apparent that a good
time was being had, or I just cracked myself up with a joke!)
The moral of the story kids is to watch more TV - Discovery, Man vs. Wild, Survivor, America's Next Top Model...these are where everyone must learn the things that REALLY matter when it comes down to life or death.
So spread the word....and the word is Swim Parallel. Say it in passing, in salutations and in closing prayers. You just might save a life.
