Yes, there was significant shrinkage. But I was pretty small to begin with.
The Polar Plunge was a week ago, and I utterly failed to post about it. This is because I'm a huge jackass. I think you all were sufficiently warned about this. Anyone who has been reading this blog for more than 2 months and hasn't figured out that I'm a huge jackass, please submit yourself for the nearest gang of roving hooligans for a severe beating.
Anyway, some of you donated your hard earned money to the good cause (The Special Olympics of Maryland), and some of you were strapped at the moment, and would have donated if you'd had the cash. You're good people, and I feel like I at least owe you a little re-cap of the event.
Some of you did not dig into your pockets despite having cash to spare. Some of you clearly don't care about the special-needs children, and would probably run over someone in a wheelchair if the opportunity arose. You people are clearly the re-animated dead, having neither hearts or souls. Under no circumstances should you read about the Plunge, since you did not contribute to it. Please go here immediately, and spend 20 minutes reading about how to make valentine decorations from common household items. You've earned it.
Okay, now that we've disposed of the freeloaders... Let me start with some relevant numbers. Thanks you all of you, I raised almost 400 bucks for the Special Olympics. Sal raised Just over 400. In total, the Plunge netted a million bucks. Let me say that again, because I want you all to feel good about donating your cash. We raised a million dollars. That's a lot of dough. So feel good about yourselves.
The crew this year consisted of: (L to R) Kate, Chris, Sal, Me, Jeri (Chris' wife) and Paul.
The Paul in the picture above is not the Paul I mention so often here in the blog. He's a different Paul entirely. I know far too many Pauls. My Paul (and I mean that in an utterly platonic, "no way are we banging each other" way) would never willingly throw himself into freezing water, because he's a huge wuss. He did volunteer to come along and take the photos though, so I have to give him credit for that. Here he is, in a silly hat:
A few thousand people showed up to plunge, and the law of averages assures us that for every few hundred normal people who just want to help out, there will be a handful of total jabbering freaks who take advantage of the event to showcase their bizarre costume fetishes. Like this guy:
I'm so glad he brought his daughter with him. It's probably good that she knows that daddy is a biker ballerina early in her development. More time to plan her escape.
Oh yeah, and apropos of absolutely nothing, look who else showed up:
Yep, thank god the stormtroopers came to the Plunge. I suppose they were there to quash any signs of rebellion against the empire, because I'm sure they didn't actually get in the water dressed like that. I mean, cool outfits and all, but what exactly about the Polar Bear Plunge says "Hey guys, break the nerd costumes out!"
Anyway, there were plenty more loonies like Biker Ballerina and the Trooper Brigade, but did Paul take pictures of them? No, because Paul was too busy taking stealth pictures of all the hairy shirtless men who were not dressed like ballerinas. I won't show you those pictures, but be assured, there were a lot of them. It's a miracle we got any shots of the actual plunge at all.
Here's one good-looking dude though:
Yeah, keep your lunches down. What can I say, Paul points the camera at you and you just feel like you need to bring the sexy, you know?
How many of you did I lose with that pic? Oh, who am I kidding? If you can handle the last lengthy discussion of urine-soaked hands and bathroom germs, you can handle me and my pasty flabby man-boobs. You all are clearly gluttons for punishment.
At this point I should admit that the day of the Plunge was ungodly warm. I feel a little guilty for this, because it certainly detracts from the manly toughness aspect of the plunge. I mean, here on the east coast we're in the middle of what seems to be the warmest winter in the history of the planet. It nearly hit 60 by the time we went into the water. I'd love nothing more than to convince you that I toughed out the blistering winter in nothing but my swim trunks, but it was practically balmy. Nothing I could do about it. I blame God.
Eventually the time came to actually jump into the bay, and this where you really get your money's worth, because even though it was May up on the beach, it was freaking January in the water. Something like 35 degrees. Running straight into water like that doesn't even feel cold. It feels like "holy fucking shit something's gone horribly wrong with my life." You don't even have time to register the cold before your brain just decides you've clearly gone insane and shuts you out of the decision making process entirely. Everybody in my group were troopers though. (Not stormtroopers.) We all decided to not only get in the water, and not only completely submerge, but that it didn't count unless you actually swam. We established that you must adhere to a strict two-stroke minimum before you began your screaming, panicked, wide-eyed flight back out of the water.
That flight back up the beach is really the part of the event where the whole thing falls apart on you. Running in requires only momentum. You just point yourself at the water, step on the gas, and barrel in as far as you can go. No problem. At some point about 3 seconds later though, you become this frightened animal that just wants to get out of the frozen horror that is clearly killing you, and you spin around and suddenly realize that you have a huge problem. This is because what you see when you spin around is 2500 people all running down the beach toward you.
As you can imagine, there is some cursing and swinging of the fists. I may have trampled a 9-year-old.
Here we all are, safely out of the water. Sure, we're smiling, but I promise you, that's the stupid uncomprehending smile you make when your brain has stopped working.
Some of you may notice that in the picture above, we gained an extra person. This was apparently a friend of Chris who showed up at the last second. None of the rest of us knew that, however, and at the time, all of us were thinking "Who the fuck is this dude horning in on our picture?"
See? Check out my face in this one:
I'm going, "Holy Jesus that was cold I can't feel my - Who the hell is that???" Now look at Sally's face in this one:
Priceless. At any rate, he turned out to be a nice dude.
After we were all dried off and somewhat warm, I made the terrible error of turning to Sal and jokingly saying, "That wasn't so bad... Let's go back in!" I forgot that my wife is a certifiable nutbag. And I mean that in the most loving way possible. She grabbed my hand and said "Let's go!"
Never doubt that I love my wife with all my heart, because I followed her into that freezing death a second time. That's either proof of love or proof of brain damage. Probably both. Anyway, the water hadn't gotten any warmer in the 5 minutes between plunges. I'm pretty sure I have permanent testicle damage now. That's okay though because Sal's womb has got to be like a slushee machine after two dunks in the bay. Two people who don't have the sense to stay out of the freezing water have no business reproducing anyway.
I should wrap this up. The bottom line was that it was a lot of fun, and thanks to you wonderful people, we raised a lot of money for a good cause. I expect all of you to show up for the next one.
I'll leave you with this picture of me and Sal, just because I think she's the cutest thing in the world, despite the obvious brain damage.
Anyway, some of you donated your hard earned money to the good cause (The Special Olympics of Maryland), and some of you were strapped at the moment, and would have donated if you'd had the cash. You're good people, and I feel like I at least owe you a little re-cap of the event.
Some of you did not dig into your pockets despite having cash to spare. Some of you clearly don't care about the special-needs children, and would probably run over someone in a wheelchair if the opportunity arose. You people are clearly the re-animated dead, having neither hearts or souls. Under no circumstances should you read about the Plunge, since you did not contribute to it. Please go here immediately, and spend 20 minutes reading about how to make valentine decorations from common household items. You've earned it.
Okay, now that we've disposed of the freeloaders... Let me start with some relevant numbers. Thanks you all of you, I raised almost 400 bucks for the Special Olympics. Sal raised Just over 400. In total, the Plunge netted a million bucks. Let me say that again, because I want you all to feel good about donating your cash. We raised a million dollars. That's a lot of dough. So feel good about yourselves.
The crew this year consisted of: (L to R) Kate, Chris, Sal, Me, Jeri (Chris' wife) and Paul.
The Paul in the picture above is not the Paul I mention so often here in the blog. He's a different Paul entirely. I know far too many Pauls. My Paul (and I mean that in an utterly platonic, "no way are we banging each other" way) would never willingly throw himself into freezing water, because he's a huge wuss. He did volunteer to come along and take the photos though, so I have to give him credit for that. Here he is, in a silly hat:
A few thousand people showed up to plunge, and the law of averages assures us that for every few hundred normal people who just want to help out, there will be a handful of total jabbering freaks who take advantage of the event to showcase their bizarre costume fetishes. Like this guy:
I'm so glad he brought his daughter with him. It's probably good that she knows that daddy is a biker ballerina early in her development. More time to plan her escape.
Oh yeah, and apropos of absolutely nothing, look who else showed up:
Yep, thank god the stormtroopers came to the Plunge. I suppose they were there to quash any signs of rebellion against the empire, because I'm sure they didn't actually get in the water dressed like that. I mean, cool outfits and all, but what exactly about the Polar Bear Plunge says "Hey guys, break the nerd costumes out!"
Anyway, there were plenty more loonies like Biker Ballerina and the Trooper Brigade, but did Paul take pictures of them? No, because Paul was too busy taking stealth pictures of all the hairy shirtless men who were not dressed like ballerinas. I won't show you those pictures, but be assured, there were a lot of them. It's a miracle we got any shots of the actual plunge at all.
Here's one good-looking dude though:
Yeah, keep your lunches down. What can I say, Paul points the camera at you and you just feel like you need to bring the sexy, you know?
How many of you did I lose with that pic? Oh, who am I kidding? If you can handle the last lengthy discussion of urine-soaked hands and bathroom germs, you can handle me and my pasty flabby man-boobs. You all are clearly gluttons for punishment.
At this point I should admit that the day of the Plunge was ungodly warm. I feel a little guilty for this, because it certainly detracts from the manly toughness aspect of the plunge. I mean, here on the east coast we're in the middle of what seems to be the warmest winter in the history of the planet. It nearly hit 60 by the time we went into the water. I'd love nothing more than to convince you that I toughed out the blistering winter in nothing but my swim trunks, but it was practically balmy. Nothing I could do about it. I blame God.
Eventually the time came to actually jump into the bay, and this where you really get your money's worth, because even though it was May up on the beach, it was freaking January in the water. Something like 35 degrees. Running straight into water like that doesn't even feel cold. It feels like "holy fucking shit something's gone horribly wrong with my life." You don't even have time to register the cold before your brain just decides you've clearly gone insane and shuts you out of the decision making process entirely. Everybody in my group were troopers though. (Not stormtroopers.) We all decided to not only get in the water, and not only completely submerge, but that it didn't count unless you actually swam. We established that you must adhere to a strict two-stroke minimum before you began your screaming, panicked, wide-eyed flight back out of the water.
That flight back up the beach is really the part of the event where the whole thing falls apart on you. Running in requires only momentum. You just point yourself at the water, step on the gas, and barrel in as far as you can go. No problem. At some point about 3 seconds later though, you become this frightened animal that just wants to get out of the frozen horror that is clearly killing you, and you spin around and suddenly realize that you have a huge problem. This is because what you see when you spin around is 2500 people all running down the beach toward you.
As you can imagine, there is some cursing and swinging of the fists. I may have trampled a 9-year-old.
Here we all are, safely out of the water. Sure, we're smiling, but I promise you, that's the stupid uncomprehending smile you make when your brain has stopped working.
Some of you may notice that in the picture above, we gained an extra person. This was apparently a friend of Chris who showed up at the last second. None of the rest of us knew that, however, and at the time, all of us were thinking "Who the fuck is this dude horning in on our picture?"
See? Check out my face in this one:
I'm going, "Holy Jesus that was cold I can't feel my - Who the hell is that???" Now look at Sally's face in this one:
Priceless. At any rate, he turned out to be a nice dude.
After we were all dried off and somewhat warm, I made the terrible error of turning to Sal and jokingly saying, "That wasn't so bad... Let's go back in!" I forgot that my wife is a certifiable nutbag. And I mean that in the most loving way possible. She grabbed my hand and said "Let's go!"
Never doubt that I love my wife with all my heart, because I followed her into that freezing death a second time. That's either proof of love or proof of brain damage. Probably both. Anyway, the water hadn't gotten any warmer in the 5 minutes between plunges. I'm pretty sure I have permanent testicle damage now. That's okay though because Sal's womb has got to be like a slushee machine after two dunks in the bay. Two people who don't have the sense to stay out of the freezing water have no business reproducing anyway.
I should wrap this up. The bottom line was that it was a lot of fun, and thanks to you wonderful people, we raised a lot of money for a good cause. I expect all of you to show up for the next one.
I'll leave you with this picture of me and Sal, just because I think she's the cutest thing in the world, despite the obvious brain damage.
posted by CommonWombat at 4:04 PM
14 Comments:
See, I donated, and then my campaign to rule the world got totally overturned on me. But, I guess if you had to plunge into icy water -- twice! -- and had brain damage, well, that makes it worth it. Next year, I'll donate twice to the both of ya'.
(You both suffer from brain damage, I'm certain of it).
That last picture is adorable!!
Hey, I want more semi-nude photos of that sexy man-bear.
Good job to both of you!! Well done! And I do love the last picture. Frame it, hang it up!
-Amy
So I finally get a pic on the blog and it's the one in that hat? I must point out that it was Jeri's hat, and we all took a turn wearing it. I would never be caught in something so...gay. ;)
And I will cop to being a huge wuss, as for me being cold is probably the worst thing in the world. I was perfectly happy to stand on the sideline and watch the lemmings all rush into the icy grip of the bay. It was an odd experience in that it was months of effort and planning, then hours of standing around for an event that probably lasted about 5 minutes. But, as Wombat has pointed out, it was all for a good cause and that's the important thing.
Great post, as always!
Nice pic of you and da missus!
so i totally love you guys and i'm coming over.
Where's my message that was supposed to go on your arm? Tell the special olympics that I want my money back.
A definite win-win situation. Not only did you help the less fortunate, but you scored a slushee machine in the process.
SNAY: More photos of the sexy man-bear? You mean the ballerina dude, don't you?
PAUL: Aaaah shaddup ya big gay fur-hatted wuss.
KENDRA: You may come over any time you like but you must bring pie. That's the rule around these parts. The saying goes "Show up sans pie? You deserve to die." Or something like that.
ACW: You blew it on 2 counts! 1) You did not donate the amount I said it would take for me to write on my body, and 2) you never provided me with a phrase to inscribe upon myself. However, you DID donate, and in my book, that makes you an okay dude. I'll make it up to you. Perhaps at the next happy hour I'll perform an embarassing act of your choosing.
TEL: well, the "Sal" part of "Me and Sal" certainly is adorable.
TFG: The best part is that I can get either "Wild Cherry" or "Icee Blue" outta that womb, depending on which way I pull the handle.
Now that I've made my 3-D Valentine out of a matchbox, a corkscrew, three pieces of used kleenex and a tampon ...
Those were fabulous pictures! And the "who the hell is that guy" series is, indeed, priceless. The last one is fabulous, too! I still like the one I took of you two in college -- you were on Sal's office chair completely reclined and she was doing a perfect "I'M FLYING! I'M SUPERMAN!" pose on your belly. Where is that shot anyway ...
you commented on yesterday's post just as i posted todays.
so get back over there, cowboy.
rowr!
i have gone in to freezing water before but i was skating at the time. good for you though.
I donanted--not because I want to help any crippled kids, but because I was banking on the fact that you were going to die in that water. I demand a full refund, or a lifetime supply of urinal cakes, whichever costs more.
And you're right, Sally is the cutest thing ever.
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