This Party Is A Sinking Ship

When I bought my very first home in 2004, my goal was to make sure that my house was the most fun house of all time with the most fun yard and the most fun cookouts. Pool Saturdays were considered mandatory in my highly valued opinion. We looked forward to Pool Saturday all week, counting down the days to forget the cares of our 24 year old worlds and just sit around indulging in food, drinks, and the latest Cosmo or Us Weekly (or U-S Weekly as our friend Kristin called it which led to us thereinafter calling it US News and World Report).

There was an obnoxious group of kids at the neighborhood pool who would compete to see who could be the loudest and splash the most girls. Then there were the parents of these children. They didn’t pay their kids any attention unless someone was bleeding or peeing on the wall (and sometimes not even then). 

One morning the girls and I were working on our tans when the little terrors arrived. They were a little quieter than normal, then I noticed that one of three was missing. Their dad was sitting in a pool chair with seventeen sausage biscuits. 

"Diddy, Steven just peed on the wall!" one of the kids ran up and yelled.

Diddy looked confused and said, "No, he didn't," and took a big bite of sausage biscuit. 

The other kid was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up. Instead of leaving his biscuits, Diddy yelled to Steven.

“Steve-O, come here.”

Steve-O hopped over, wiping his leg off, and stood right in front of Diddy.

“DID YOU PISS ON THAT WALL?”

Steve-O rolled over in laughter.

“No Dad! No way did I do that!” 

Steve-O was laughing so hard, he sounded like he was having an asthma attack. 

Diddy looked at the other brothers. "He's good," he said through bites of Sausage Biscuit #4. 

I walked over to the restroom only to find a yellow stream running across the sidewalk blocking the door to the restroom.  I yelled to the girls, hoping that Diddy would hear me. I know he did because he made eye contact with me, then he put some more grape jelly on Sausage Biscuit #5.

Moments later, the masses started arriving with balloons and party favors. Based on the banner, it was “Jordan’s” birthday. There was also a DJ who rolled in his equipment on the same cart that was holding a grill and some leis. I’d heard Jordan’s name being yelled before, for doing something like intentionally peeing on the wall or throwing his sister's phone into the pool. 

Much to our chagrin, one of the Dads walked in with an 8-man river raft and threw it into the pool. Most of the water thaicooned over the side of the pool due to the bulk of the raft. This screamed disaster in my mind, yet I was hopeful it would wash away Steve-O's stream of urine.

All of the kids immediately ran and jumped into the raft that took up 85% of the pool. The other 15% of the pool was filled with kids clamoring to get on while pushing others off. It looked like the scene from Titanic when all of the drowning passengers were struggling around the lifeboats. This party was now the sinking ship. 

One of the kids got his leg stuck in a rope on the side of the raft and he started screaming in pain. Blood was starting to fill the pool and I raised an eyebrow with obvious concern. There was so much blood that I began to wonder if sharks would surface and surround him.

DJ Jazzy Jordan's Dad came up to us with his Hawaiian shirt open revealing 4 leis resting on his nest of chest hair. He began shaking my friend’s leg. She was asleep.

“Girls! Hey! The party is about to start! We’re going to play some awesome Billboard hits, and have a limbo contest, and a dance off! And hotdogs!”

It was 10:45 AM. 

I looked over to the Party Corner to find all the little girls standing with arms crossed and scrunched up faces because the boys had taken over the raft. The parents started to catch on that all of the other people and families that were trying to enjoy the pool had to get out for fear of dying. Kids were crying, and concerned parents were shielding their children from this insanity. One Dad finally snapped.  

"That's it! Get out! Everybody out of the pool!"

A hush fell over the place and everyone did as he said. No parent argued with him because they were afraid. 

At this point in the action we were getting a little hungry, so we decided to try and score some of Jordan’s hotdogs and maybe (if we were really lucky!) a piece of cake. We thought we would try and win them over with some entertainment. 

It was cannonball time! We all held hands, ran, and jumped into the water at the one corner of the pool that was not occupied by the giant raft or the bleeding child. When we surfaced, the kids were laughing and clapping. Jordan’s dad walked over wearing a big grin and carrying three leis. 

“Girls, that was awesome! Hey... would you do us the honor of joining us for hotdogs and cake?”

“How about a little of both?” 

“Anything you want! We have leftover leis, too!” he said a little too enthusiastically.

We smiled to ourselves. Success.