TToML 20: "Ice"-capades

February 2011. Living in 109.

So at Roman Gardens there is a swimming pool in the quad (best thing ever, btw). In the fall as it starts to get cold, management somewhat drains the pool and then slaps a cover over it. Done. Until the middle of summer when they finally get around to maybe getting it somewhat ready for people to illegally swim in it...

Anyways, today is not a time to complain about that. My story today takes place in the winter, so the pool is closed with the cover over it.

One night we were chilling in the living room and someone said, "Dude, that would be awesome if the swimming pool was an ice rink!" We all agreed and momentarily thought about the possibility and then moved on.

But actually, McKensey didn't move on, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Several nights later we were bored and she said, "Ok guys, let's go check out the pool. I think we can skate on it."

I was extremely reluctant, but I put on my coat and headed out to the pool. We all circled it several times, doing what we could to test the surface. It actually seemed pretty solid. It appeared that there was a layer of ice, probably like 4-6 inches thick that was on top of the pool cover from all the rain and melted snow that had frozen in the frigid winter temperatures.

We looked around at each other, debating whether it would be safe to actually step on the ice. Then McKensey said, "Wait! Lemme go grab the bowling ball!" The summer before, Ben Brooksby had bought a bowling ball at DI for the case which he converted into a camera case, discarding the bowling ball. It had mostly been floating around the quad for a while.

So McKensey brought the ball over and was like, "Alright, I'm gonna roll it across and see if the ice holds it..." And it did. We tossed it back and forth a few more times and then promptly decided that if the ice could hold a 10 lb bowling ball, it could definitely hold 4-5 young adult women.

Okay, our logic wasn't quite that skewed. I was the first brave soul to test the ice. It felt super sturdy so I urged someone else to join me, and eventually there were 4 or 5 of us on the pool.

We first started with unconfident scooting across the ice. Then we got a little braver and started to run and slide. A little bit of figure skating might have ensued. And then we realized we had a bowling ball...someone ran and grabbed a broom and we took a stab at curling. It's probably easier when you have an actual curling rock with a flat bottom than a spherical shaped bowling ball, but at least we can say we tried.

By this time we had attracted attention from several people throughout the complex and had a small audience watching our ridiculous adventure, but thankfully the managers were as inattentive as was normal. It was about this time though that we started to hear small crackling sounds around the edge of the pool, so we wisely decided to quickly dismount the pool and call it a night.

So the lesson we learn from this story? A bowling ball is the only indicator you need to see if a frozen swimming pool will hold the weight of you and all your friends.