Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus (2 page)

A
TLANTA—There’s an old saying in journalism: “Be careful of what you make fun of, because you could find yourself upside down attempting a Vertical Split while your lungs rapidly fill with water.”

There’s a lot of truth in this saying, as I found out when I took the Synchronized Swimming Media Challenge.

Here’s what happened: Ever since Synchronized Swimming became an official Olympic sport, we journalists have ridiculed it. The thrust of our gist is: “Exactly what is so athletically impressive about people swimming around in circles while smiling like recently escaped lunatics? ANYBODY could do that!”

Eventually the Synchronized Swimming community got tired of hearing this, and responded as follows: “Oh YEAH? Well how about if YOU try it, Expense Account Butt?”

And thus I found myself at Emory University, wearing nose clips and goggles, in a pool about the size of Lake Huron, only deeper, with a dozen young and extremely fit members of U.S. Synchronized Swimming National Team One, who will basically be the U.S. Olympic Team for the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.

Also in the pool was my synchronized media partner and
Herald
colleague, sports columnist Dan Le Batard. Dan and I, knowing that the full masculine studliness of our bodies would be on display, had prepared for the challenge via a grueling fitness regimen of not having eaten a single Snickers bar for the entire previous hour. I estimate that our body fat content had plummeted to somewhere around 87 percent.

The spokesperson for U.S. Synchronized Swimming, Laura LaMarca, had told me earlier that we fit the basic profile of journalists who had taken the Challenge.

“Floating is definitely not a problem for the media,” she said.

That may be true, but I was pleased to see that there were two lifeguards on hand.

“That’s standard procedure,” LaMarca said. “A one-to-one ratio of lifeguards to journalists.”

With our safety assured, Dan and I started learning our synchronized maneuvers. The first one was called Eggbeatering, which is when you move your legs around like an eggbeater, so you can keep your head and shoulders above the pool surface while you raise your arms gracefully into the air.

At least that’s how it worked for the members of National Team One. When Dan and I gracefully raised OUR arms, our entire bodies, arms and all, immediately sank like anvils. So when we all tried the maneuver together, there was a circle of a dozen young women, smiling and raising their arms, and in the middle of the circle there was this
bubbling, violently turbulent patch of water, underneath which were Dan and me, trying desperately to eggbeater our way back to the surface before our lungs exploded.

After we gave up on eggbeatering, we tried the Ballet Leg, which is when you lie on your back and raise your leg gracefully into the air. When the synchronized swimmers did this, their bodies remained absolutely steady and horizontal, they appeared to be lying on floats. When Dan and I attempted it, we hit the pool bottom so hard we left dents.

At this point I noticed that the lifeguards were standing much closer.

My favorite maneuver was the Vertical Split, which is when you get yourself upside down in the water, then do some kind of arm thing that causes you to shoot up, Polaris-like, so that your legs and hips come all the way out of the water, at which point you execute a graceful split. We attempted this as a group, with Dan and me again in the middle, and I will never forget the sight from the bottom of the pool, where I of course immediately found myself. All around me were the national team members, their bodies upside down and perfectly vertical, submerged only from head to waist, their legs high in the air; next to me, also on the bottom, was Dan, both of us flailing as hard as we could, trying frantically to gain some altitude, but managing to get only our toes out of the water.

That’s the only maneuver you’d see, if the media ever did get a team together: Synchronized Toes.

Anyway, after about 45 straight minutes of alternately eggbeatering and sinking, I came to the surface, and, using what little air I had left in my lungs, shouted, “THIS IS THE HARDEST SPORT IN THE WORLD!”

Then, and only then, did they let us out of the pool.

I
found out about laser tag from a guy I know named Woody Woody is in public relations, despite the fact that he looks like—and I say this as a friend—a street person who has failed to take his medication since 1972. I believe this is the secret of his success: When Woody approaches business people, they expect him to ask them for spare change, and possibly throw up on their shoes, and when he doesn’t, they’re so relieved that they agree to let him handle their public relations.

Anyway, Woody represents this outfit that operates a laser-tag game, and he’d been bugging me to try it.

“It’s really cool,” he said. “Everybody runs around and tries to shoot everybody else.”

“Woody,” I said, “that doesn’t sound like a
game
. That sounds like
Miami.”

But finally I decided to look into it, because I’m a journalist, and in my line of work, you never know when you’re going to come across a socially significant new phenomenon, except that this will definitely not happen to you if you’re playing laser tag.

And thus on a Friday afternoon I went with my son, Rob, to the laser-tag place, Q-Zar, in Coconut Grove, which is a part of Miami where busloads of European tourists go to enjoy the unique South Florida tropical experience of meeting and mingling with other European tourists, sometimes from completely different buses.

The laser-tag place was staffed by wholesome-looking young people. They collected $7.50 apiece from us and ushered us into the Briefing Room, along with about a dozen others who would be playing the game—some teenage boys, a family with munchkin-sized children, and two women who looked as though they came directly from work.

At this point we were just ordinary humans with no interest in killing each other.

A staff person divided us into a Red Team and a Green Team, then explained the principles of the game, which boil down to: Shoot the other team. (Actually, the staff person, for public-relations reasons, used the term “tag” instead of “shoot.”) Each time you get shot you lose a life; after you lose four lives, you go to the Re-Energizer, where—here’s a major improvement over reality—you get four MORE lives.

The staff person also said we could use our lasers to deactivate the Enemy Base.

“Why would we do that?” asked one of the women who looked as though they came directly from work.

Rob and I smirked at each other, guy-to-guy, trying to imagine the mental state of a person who would not immediately grasp the importance of deactivating the Enemy Base. Our smirks got even smirkier when this woman asked if it was okay to play the game
wearing high heels and carrying purses
.

Sometimes you have to wonder what is happening to this nation.

After the briefing, we went into the Vesting Room, where we each got a laser gun, attached to a red or green plastic vest (the vest has a device that vibrates when somebody shoots you). Then we were led to a big, dark, semi-spooky room with artificial smoke drifting around and a big maze in the middle, full of nooks and crannies where a person could skulk. The two teams went to opposite ends of the room. Then a voice on the loudspeaker said “5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 …” and suddenly the room was filled with extremely loud pulsating music apparently created by musicians beating their amplifiers to death with rocks.

I am not a violent person. I am a product of the Flower Power sixties. I have actually worn bell-bottomed jeans and stood in a mass of hundreds of people, swaying back and forth, singing, ‘Everybody get together, try to love one another right now,’ having vivid visions of World Peace. (Granted, some of us were also having vivid visions of giant red frogs hopping across the sky, but that’s another issue.) I haven’t been in a fight since seventh grade and have never owned a gun.

But when the laser-tag game started, a primeval reptile instinct took over my brain, turning me instantly into The Avenging Death Killer of Doom. I made Rambo look like Mister Rogers. I was a wild man—darting through the dark maze, ducking around corners, making totally unintelligible combat-style hand signals to my teammates. At one point, I swear, I signaled to my son, and, without a trace of irony, yelled “Cover me!” My nervous system was on Maximum Overload Red Alert, because I knew that somewhere
out there, in that smoky gloom, was The Enemy, and I had to hunt him down without pity, because he was a merciless killer who would not hesitate to …

BZZZZZZZZZZ

NO! My vibrator is vibrating! I’ve been SHOT! The Enemy is even more deadly than I thought! He is vicious! He is brutal! He is …

He is a woman wearing high heels
.

At least she didn’t hit me with her purse.

I also got nailed repeatedly by the munchkins. The Avenging Death Killer of Doom spent a lot of time skittering back to the Re-Energizer, trailed by a persistent seven-year-old with excellent aim who was making The Avenging Death Killer of Doom’s vest vibrate like a defective alarm clock.

But I also scored a few hits myself, and at one point—I want this in my obituary—I deactivated the Enemy Base. Overall I found the experience to be far more entertaining than anything currently being funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. And to those of you who feel that this kind of game is bad because it might encourage aggressive behavior in a society that is already far too violent, let me say that, while I understand your point, I also feel that this type of “play-acting” activity can provide a harmless release for aggressiveness and actually
reduce
violence. So shut up or I’ll kill you.