Dunk Tank Drama - Part 2
Posted by Pete on June 29, 2023 at 04:32:47
The day before the carnival would turn out to be a busy day. I had to go pick up the dunk tank from the fire station - but the fire station was also doing a pancake breakfast fundraiser. They were doing me a favor by lending me the dunk tank free of charge (usually we rented it out, as a fundraiser), so I figured I should show up and help at the pancake breakfast. I also figured I should take my nephew Derek with me, figuring he'd enjoy being at the fire station and helping with the pancake breakfast. I failed to account for the fact that Derek is NOT a morning person, and that I probably permitted him to stay up too late the night before. So he was not a very happy camper when I woke him up early that day! His first attempt at getting dressed ended with him wearing his t-shirt inside out, and only one sock. A few trips back to his bedroom, and he was finally prepared with all articles of clothing on right-side-out and we were ready to go.
By the time we got to the fire station, Derek was perked up and back to his usual chatty self. Derek's daddy is a full-time firefighter, and there's no doubt in my mind that Derek will have the same job when he's old enough. One of the Assistant Chiefs was standing in the apparatus bay when we walked in the door, and he and Derek quickly struck up a conversation about the types of trucks we have, the gear on them, and our firefighting tactics. Our Assistant Chief is a wonderful person, and entertained Derek's questions and observations - then later remarked to me, "you should get him signed up with the department, he's smarter than half the guys we have working here!" We spent a few hours helping with the pancake breakfast - Derek talked himself into getting a great job, flipping pancakes. I had a less desirable job, washing dishes - but hey, I know my place.
Once the breakfast was done, Derek got his own plate full of pancakes to wolf down, then we got to work getting dunk tank out in the back parking lot hooked up to the hitch on my car, and hauled back to my house. One thing I cannot do is back up a trailer, so I parked on the street and unhooked the dunk tank. Fortunately Jon, the neighbor teenager who started this whole dunk tank idea, saw us out there, and he and a friend, plus me and Derek, pushed the dunk tank up my driveway, and we set it in the yard between my house and my neighbor's. "Can I test it out?" was the first thing Derek asked. And I couldn't blame him, it's the first thing I would have wanted to do when I was his age. And the day was starting to get warm, and of course a dip in the water would feel good. But, the responsible adult in me didn't want to fill the tank with water a day early, honestly I was a bit concerned about liability of having a tank full of water unattended. So, I decided to leave the tank collapsed until tomorrow, which Derek wasn't pleased about. And he also wasn't pleased about our next chore - my wife had borrowed a wheelbarrow and some gardening tools from a neighbor, and we had to spread some new mulch around the bushes in our yard. It wasn't the most fun and took a couple of hours, and then we had to wheel the wheelbarrow and tools back to our neighbors house.
I'm pretty friendly with the family that we borrow the tools from, and they have 2 kids around Derek's age, and he's actually befriended the kids from previous visits to our house. The family also has a nice pool in their back yard, and when we arrived at the family's house, I could hear the kids splashing around in the pool. Derek was invited to join them if he wished, and before I could blink, he'd made a bee-line for the pool, perhaps deliberately making sure we wouldn't have time to discuss him going home to change into his swimtrunks. I caught up with him before he dove in, and got him to take his phone out from his pocket and get his shoes off prior to ending up in the water. The kids were playing a game where one of them would stand on the edge of the pool, and be asked some trivia question by one of the other kids. If you didn't have the right answer, you'd get pushed in the pool. Derek was eager to participate, and the other kids (who were sensibly dressed in swim trunks) thought it was quite comical to push him in the pool in his t-shirt, shorts and socks. Meanwhile, I sat and chatted with my neighbors while the kids swam, until we politely took our leave.
"I don't have a towel," Derek said, frowning, as if this just dawned on him. "Should have thought about that before you jumped in the pool," I observed, and Derek just grinned at me. "Um, is there anything else you're forgetting?" I asked him. He looked at me, confused, and I pointed at his bare feet. "Oh!" he yelped, and sprinted back to retrieve his shoes. This seemed to take much longer than I'd have expected, and when I looked back, he was back in the pool. I rolled my eyes and went back to retrieve him. "I can't find my other sock!" he exclaimed when I arrived. And seemed to be searching the pool, the deck and the yard around the pool in search of it. I couldn't help but roll my eyes - I have no idea how one sock could go missing, and why it would be anywhere other than right next to the one sock that he was able to locate. But, if I returned my nephew to my in overall good health and unharmed, I figure he'd forgive me if one single sock was lost. So I assured Derek that life would go on, and my neighbor kindly promised to call me if she discovered a lone sock not belonging to one of her own children, so we headed back home, Derek dripping as we walked back up the sidewalk.
As we passed Jon's house, he was working on something in my garage, and saw us walk past. "Mr. Davision," he yelled - he had something he wanted to show us. "Check this out, Derek," he said, revealing what he'd been working on - a few large posterboards with a "Dunk Tank Schedule" drawn on them - complete with photos of the various dunk-ees. Some of them looked like high school prom photos - the guys dressed nice in shirts and ties, others looked like funny candids of them making funny faces and stuff. "Uncle Petey's getting dunked!" Derek exclaimed gleefully when he found my ugly mug. "And I am too!" he said, as he finally found his own name and picture on the schedule. He was positively beaming, probably excited to be included among the teenage kids who were the majority of the dunk tank victims. He was scheduled for later in the afternoon, probably after "prime time," but I knew there'd still be plenty of kids his age around at that point, no doubt eager to sink his loud mouth in to the water.
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Part 3 coming soon
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