The Story Of How I Almost Drowned and Died.

        Well, recently the weather has been one mega big piece of retarded. First it’s incredibly windy with a bit of drizzle… then it goes ahead and pulls a Kanye West, and out of nowhere this hot Palm Springs weather comes out.

Not that I don’t love it, though. All day I kept on repeating, “Oh my gosh, don’t you just love this flipping weather? It’s like Palm Springs!”
         Sadly, not many of them have been to Palm Springs. Not that they’re really missing out on much… last time I went, which was about five years ago, the big highlight was the massive Soak City trip, which was also where that was the first time I got a concussion, too.


Sure, I’ll tell you my pain story. So, back then, I was kind of a grumpy kid. You know, when you’re growing up you think you know everything, correct? Well, that’s what I thought {that I knew everything, that is} and on that trip, I wanted everything to go my way because I was right and I knew everything.

But we’re tired, honey, let’s stop and have some ice cream!


No, we’re going to the lazy river. Now.


Hey, we’re kinda hungry, don’t you want some pizza? I’ll throw in some Dippin’ Dots, too! You said you wanted some!


No. We’re going to the Tidal Wave Tower.

So, yeah, I was a pretty strict chick way back when…
         Anyway, so since I was a strict girl, I wanted to go where *I* wanted to go. And I wanted to go to the giant green dark waterslide where it’s pitch-black most of the time. But, of course, I wasn’t about to go by myself. So I asked to my dad to come with me. And he did. And I asked him to go behind me in the raft.

"But, I think it would be best for me to go in front. You know, since I’m heavier… I can steer it better!”
“No, dad, it would be best for you to go in the back, so it’s heavier in the back, and we will go steeper faster!”

Now, those were probably my exact words, and now that I think about it, I’m sure we went slower than everyone else.
We waited in line for almost fourty-five minutes {that ride is populaaaaaaaaar}, and finally when it was our turn, we sat on the little floating thingamabob and slid. I tried to steer as much as my body allowed me, but it didn’t help—we were going to fast, and my tiny little eight-year-old body was no help.

After what felt like a minute of sliding down and turning crazily in the dark, there was a big turn—a huge turn that made our little raft turn completely over… I hit my head on the ride and I’m sure I actually passed out for like fifteen seconds… my dad, being much heavier, slid right past me. And I was a dead girl in a pitch-black slide, with water running down it, and I was going down lazily.

Then, I hit the end and I fell into the incredibly deep pool. After realizing I was still down there without resurfacing for about ten seconds, I finally came up and lazily swam to the edge of the pool. My mom was waiting by the steps with a towel.

“Ay Dios Mio, Mija, what happened to you?!”

      She told me I had a huge bump on my forehead that looked really purple. I felt like passing out again, too… But they sat me down, and asked me how I felt. I told them that I felt like I was slowly dying.
        They took me to the little nurse’s office in the park and they just told me to sit for a few minutes with an ice pack on my forehead. After that I felt great and my energy came back, but I still had an ugly bump on my forehead.


And that is how I realized my parents are smarter than they seemed to me. And that is also how I almost died and drowned.

-Jessica Sandoval