Cry Me a River

It was the day after yesterday at a growing technology startup in sunny–no, wait–stormy Los Angeles. It was 5:00 PM, we were only in the middle of the work day, and it was gloomy, raining hard with thunder and lightning and an earthquake to shake up the evening. We look outside our window with our beautiful view to the gloomiest, grayest river on the face of the planet, contaminated with all sorts of garbage and trashier than the Spice Girls. We all stand around, looking at this river that’s been flooded from the pouring rain and wind. This is the highlight of our day, so far.

The CEO, we’ll call him “Disco”, decides it would be a good idea to offer $500 to anyone to swim across and make it. It is freezing and raining outside. The water is even colder…and wetter and sickening to even look at. The current is practically making waves. One of the sales guys (aka professional prostitutes), we’ll call him “David”, claims he will do it. I believe this is the most retarded thing he has said in at least the past few hours. Now, I wouldn’t mind watching, but that would require me to go outside and view the event. It is cold and I think being in the cold for entertainment is not worth it. For money, well, that’s a different story. No wait–keep reading, same story.

Knowing that sales people are just glorified and slightly brighter prostitutes and will do anything for money, but will take risks to gain more green, I play David’s manager to make him an overnight celebrity. I immediately claim $500 is not enough, and only $1000 is really worth it. David obviously has no way to disagree to someone standing up for him and doesn’t need to say anything. No way Disco will throw down so much for that sort of entertainment, so I decide I will help make it entertaining by participating. Hell, we’ll make it a race. First person across and alive gets $1000. Now it’s interesting, but too expensive. Disco doesn’t want to put down so much, so he tells the office bitch and finance god, we’ll call him “Babar”, to put down half. Babar is 6’3, muscular and a workout monger. However, his phobias and nervousness keep him in a constant state of fear, so being the timid and nervous person he is, he coyly agrees. The other prostitute of the office, we’ll call him “Grant”, puts in $100, so Babar and Disco only need to throw down $450 each. They are pleased with this outcome, especially knowing no one is really going to go all the way across. You’d have to be a moron to even try.

David is smart and suggests loser gets $300 assuming they cross all the way, and $700 to the winner. I boastfully state the loser should get $250, but quickly go back to $300 knowing he is bigger and stronger than me. However, the most logical person in the company, we’ll call him “Spidey”, states that the current of the river is moving way too fast for anyone to cross over it and it’s probably moving at about 9 knots. Knowing that money supersedes logic, and people pay to see and hear music by a white rapper named after a chocolaty candy and sings about Vicodin and homosexuals, we quickly put his unwanted coherence aside.

We decide we should go outside and see how bad it really is. We go outside. It is bad. David and I quickly state how ridiculous it is to go into that water with such a current. I realize I have alcohol in my car. I run to the car, grab some Grey Goose, take a few swigs and hand it to David. We quickly decide we can do it. I think back to a time I had too much alcohol and felt that I could bench press lots of weight. I think back to the time I failed miserably and how the alcohol only made me feel strong. The cold makes me quickly forget about such logic.

We jump the fence, which I have repeated trouble with, especially with the cheap sandals and very “fitted” jeans I was wearing. I blame the rain for making them tight. We get over the fence and go down towards the water. I suggest, slightly drunk from the sorry excuse for a shot I took moments earlier, that we should poll others in the building to see if they want to add to the pot. Disco looks at me as if I’m joking. Whatever, I can live with three to seven hundred. Little do I know that no one expects us to make it all the way and are here just for the free entertainment. That is, free if we don’t cross, as everyone rightfully believes. David and I look at each other for a minute deciding what to do.

We take off our shirts. We haven’t yet decided to go in, but we want to at least look good. Shoes come off. Pants come off. David and I are prancing around in our shorts in the freezing rain. We are ready to gets our hands wet, so we want to see what the water feels like and hope the oil, pollution and radiation keeps it warm. It does not. We go down into the water and place our feet in. It is cold. I am glad I have shorts on as my muscles are not the only things shriveled up at this point.

We move two feet forward and the current is thrusting against us like a giver in a jail cell. We go way back to the side. What we also notice is the current is moving about three times as fast on the other half. We look at each other in disbelief and think to ourselves, “we are not doing this.” David has his hands in the water a few moments later, the current brings something to his hand. He brings forth up a fence post with nails sticking out of it. This will be fun.

At this point I’m waiting for him to back out, so I can gracefully back out as well. He is waiting for me to back out. The water is freezing cold. He jumps into the water and starts swimming. *sigh* Using the brain I developed during puberty, I jumped in after him and began to swim. I have never been in so much filth. All sorts of garbage is just flowing right into my side and my face. What the hell am I doing? I realize I need to A) go back and suffer no injuries except ridicule, or B) get to the other side and possibly have hypothermia. I continue swimming. Next thing I know my hand gets stuck in a Cup’o’noodles cup and am swimming with it. I throw it back into the sewage and swim fast to try to catch up.

The current is strong, pushing us down the river. I am freezing. I begin to put more thought into what the coldness does but quickly realize I have to get to the other side. I swim and swim, not getting there as fast as I would like with the current. I am half way there and stop swimming. The cold has ceased my muscles from working. I look around and am floating down the river as if I were a fish speeding away. I begin to backstroke through more current, turn around and end up swallowing all sorts of this sorry excuse for water. I feel like I’m about to puke but I continue to swim. I’m getting closer and closer. I know I can make it. My muscles are getting more numb every second. I cannot see David as I don’t have my glasses, but I know he is way ahead of me. I just want to reach land. I am going the distance, but not very quickly.

I have done it. I am feet away from land. I try to stand up, but you can not stand up when a current is pushing you down a river. I make an attempt and my knee scrapes against cement and the current rolls me onto the cement. I manage to get up against the current, climb up the slanted cement wall and make it to dry land. I have done it. I have slain Goliath. I throw my hands into the air with what little energy I have left.

And I hear the sirens of my victory. Wait. These are not sirens of victory.

From a distance I hear, “GUYS, RUN! THE COPS ARE COMING!” I do not like these sirens as they are not beautiful or from the intoxicated sea. David catches up with me on the road we are on, and we make the sorriest attempt at a run that I’ve ever seen. We just sprinted our asses off and are shivering, dripping wet, half naked in the cold with no energy left. Unfortunately at this point, we were personas non grata and have little choice. We run. We stop. “RUN THE COPS ARE COMING” again. I do not like this one bit.

We run some more. We stop some more. We hear more about cops and a siren. We continue to run to the closest road which happens to be a bridge. We are close and get to it and don’t notice the men in black at the bottom combing the river with flashlights. A search and rescue team was dispatched to find us, as were the police. We get to the road and notice a familiar car. David says to me, “well we can just say we’re joggers.” We are wearing boxers, are wet and dirty, smell like an oil spill and have no shoes. The headache I have doesn’t allow me to conjure up a single coherent thought, so I agree with him. There is a big fence to jump to get to the road and we are barefoot. We are aware that police are close and jump it. We go to the familiar car, take one look back and notice two large signs on the fence: “TRESPASSERS WILL BE FINED $1000 UP TO 6 MONTHS IN JAIL”. Go figure.

We jump into the car where Spidey is readily waiting for us, and drive. Fast. We take a route I don’t know and get back to the office. In a sweat to separate us from the car, we go to the side of the building where we believe there are no cops. We run into the building half naked without shoes, get to our office, get in and lock the door. Grant and Disco are waiting for us with most of our clothes. Security questioned both of them. Four cop cars arrived while we were coming in. We never talked to any of them, and they did not find us.

I fall onto the floor with a splitting headache and am cold. David decides he needs to throw up as I point out we drank some of that water. Babar, after not answering his phone and worrying us a bit as they all split up, came back. He claims the water is diluted so it’s no big deal. This is the man that washes his hands every three minutes and keeps a wet cloth by at all times to clean his hands. Yes Babar, it was diluted with sewage and garbage.

Luckily, everyone makes it back safely. No one is questioned by the police, although Grant and Disco are questioned by security who called the police. Everyone is safe and not too sick. David and I recover from the drinking of sewage, cold water, and cement scrapes without a problem except for a few aches. Disco, Grant and Babar throw down their cash and we claim our rightful money. I get 2nd place and later find out David is a scuba diving trainer of some sort. Great.

Ugh, I’m going to puke. I drank garbage.

There are fun nights, there are crazy nights, and then there are those nights that make men legends. This all occurred before 6:00 PM so I can’t claim to have taken part in any of those.