The Boner Board

Yesterday I was asked if I had a funny “swimming” story and was subsequently reminded of the single-most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen happen to another human being.

In a middle school health class, we spent a couple of days at the pool doing water safety and CPR stuff. One of those days, our teacher picked one of the male students in the class to serve as the victim of a hypothetical accident so that he could instruct us on how to properly strap someone onto a backboard in the water.

The teacher picks like two guys and two girls to strap this kid in while he’s in the water. He tells him to go limp so it’s as realistic as possible.

They get this kid on the board and they strap in his neck, arms, and legs so he’s perfectly immobile. But while they’re doing this, he starts to — well, let’s just say he has a problem going limp like the teacher had asked.

So this kid is just laying there strapped onto the board, floating on top of the water in only his swim trunks and he’s sporting a full-fledged teepee. It looked like he had put a lava lamp in his pocket before class or something.

And we’re all in seventh grade so of course we’re all just laughing uncontrollably as the teacher does his best to try and ignore it. But it wasn’t until yesterday when I thought of the story again and realized that it was like the Super Bowl of embarrassing moments.

You’re just laying there on a backboard, you can’t move your head, neck or arms but one part of your body has no problem moving at all. Can you imagine just staring up at the lights above the pool while this is happening and just hoping beyond hope that the teacher flips the board over and just lets you drown to put you out of your misery? At that point you’d rather be in a body bag than a bodyboard.

And can you imagine the four people who had to strap this kid in just standing around and staring at this periscope coming up out of the water like the pool was full of submarines in World War II?

Every girl in the class that day pretty much had this look on their face.

Looking back as an adult I realize any one of us guys could have easily found himself in that situation. When you’re in seventh grade, that part of your body is completely involuntary. It’s like a hiccup: You have no idea how to control it but have heard that getting really scared or holding your breath might help.

That moment was later referred to as “The Boner Board” and became somewhat of a cult hit within the middle school hallways.

And whatever became of the kid who got strapped onto the boner board, you ask? I’m pretty sure he’s a meth dealer now. So there ya go.

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