Sunday, January 02, 2011

Ice, Ice Baby

     Ice.  That is what all these crazy people are going to be who have been taking part in these Polar Bear Plunges all weekend long.  I am not exactly sure what makes a person decide to jump into freezing cold water - water so cold that ice has formed over part of it - in the middle of January just for the sake of doing it.  I would suspect that there is some sort of worm or bug that has entered their brain and lodged in the part that makes you think rational thoughts, because that is the only way it makes sense for them to do that.  What is even sicker are the people who actually organize the events for people and watch.  Now that is fucked up.
     This whole business makes me wonder, it really does.  Now I understand that sometimes people will hop out of a sauna and roll around in the snow, which makes a little more sense to me because you are butt-ass hot when you sit in one of those things for long enough.  But if I am standing on a wide open icy lake, with the north wind sweeping down at like a thousand miles and hour and my dingus was freezing off, and I found myself chopping through the ice with a fucking ice pick in order to make a hole through which to jump, I would hope that something inside of me would start to grumble and take exception with the whole scheme.  Or at least something would click when I took my pantaloons off and suddenly I had three Adam's Apples.
     So why do we do it?  Why do people go on with this fucking nutso custom year after year after year, and do it with pride?  Maybe it is the thrill and adrenaline of suddenly not being able to breathe when your thorax hits the 30° water.  Maybe it is a guy wishing he was a girl and when he jumps in his nuts flip inside out and become a big, gaping vagina.  Maybe the people just like knowing they are tough and have survived some of the harshest conditions available.  Or maybe we are all just fucking stupid.  Who knows.  But there must be something about it, because people keep doing it, and I have always sort of wanted to do it, which I guess makes me a fucking retard.  But such is life.  I have never claimed to be the smartest, now have I?  It's time to jump in the lake!

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