Sunday, May 18, 2008

Meat Sweater

If you told me 10 years ago that when I was 24, I'd be standing in the middle of a lake in rural Japan at 4 in the morning with a metalhead from New York, I might not have believed you.

This weekend there was a party out in the boonies. There was a beautiful lake in front of the house we were staying at. Many of you know that I'm always on the lookout for new cold-water swimming opportunities. Out of the maybe 15 people still awake, I managed to convince 1 of my friends to hit the lake with me. It was almost pitch black outside, and the lake was ice cold. We were in the mountains, and there was still snow along the side of the road.

We got in the water. As expected, it was ice cold. There were some trees growing out of the water, so we each took a victory lap around them. Afterwards, I said "well, that was awesome, let's go back inside."

My friend said "nah, I think I'm gonna finish my beer first." So we stood in the chest-high water and chatted while he finished his can of Keirin.

After, I said "sweet, let's go in now."

My friend replied "Nah, how bout we go swim over to those metal platforms instead?" I looked a hundred meters out, and sure enough there were a couple metal platforms raised out of the water. So we swam over and climbed onto them. My friend jumped off. He said the water was not deep enough to jump off, and that I probably shouldn't follow suit.

At this point I'm shivering uncontrollably. I'm usually the last person to get cold, but I've met my match with this guy. He keeps saying how he is starting to warm up and feel comfortable in the water. I manage to convince him that we should go in, since we've been swimming in near-freezing water for about a half hour. He agrees, rather nonchalantly, and we walk back to the house, where I change into something warm and shiver myself to sleep under some blankets I brought. My friend is standing outside smoking a cigarette and talking to somebody. He is still wearing his sopping wet clothes, but doesn't seem to mind.

Later, I asked him why he wasn't cold. He patted his respectable gut and said "Because dude, I'm rockin' the meat sweater."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rambo would freeze.

Sam said...

I used to have a meat parka. Kept me very warm in many situations.

Nate said...

Yeah, I had at least a meat vest in college. Remember when our boat sank in Connecticut and me, you, and Dave J were playing around in the water having fun, and everybody else had to huddle underneath those emergency hypothermia blankets when the coast guard got us out?

They needed more meatwear, clearly.

Unknown said...

Oh god, that was probably the coldest I've ever been.

Sam said...

Yeah, I wasn't cold at all. I was actually quite comfortable. Although, that was before I invested in the meat parka. At that point, I was probably donning a meat wind-breaker. If I had been wearing my meat parka, I probably would have over-heated.