Dunk tank drama
Posted by Pete on January 12, 2023 at 01:05:53
The wife and I are settling into our small town suburban lifestyle. I find it a little boring, but its practical - we were able to get a nice house in our budget in a nice neighborhood, with good schools, parks, all the niceties of American living. Sets us up well for when kids come along. The neighbors seem nice. There's the usual melodrama from time to time, but overall it seems like a friendly crowd and my wife and I have mostly assimilated into a circle of friends. The neighborhood puts on a block party early in the summer, and we volunteered to contribute to it. Me being me, of course I had the idea that we should run a dunk tank. I still volunteer with a local fire department, and we have one that we rent as a fundraiser, which I'd be allowed to borrow free of change since I'm a volunteer there. My wife and I talked, and we'd take care of setting it up, filling it, supervising it, and I'd even talk to some local celebrities about being dunk-ees. (The usual suspects: school principal, police officers, firefighters, youth sports coaches, etc.) I figured any remaining time would easily be filled by parents or older kids looking to cool off on a hot day.
So tonight we have a meeting about the block party, and I'm proud of myself and announce my idea of the dunk tank. Since it wouldn't cost anything and I was volunteering to do all the work, I figured it would be a slam dunk. And boy, was I ever wrong! We were sitting around someone's kitchen table and when it was my turn, I shared my idea. And you'd have thought I was suggesting we let the kids play in a pit filled with poisonous snakes. Everyone went silent, and you could hear a pin drop in the room. And I'm sitting there thinking "Um... what?" Finally someone laughed nervously and said that they'd had some "problems" in the past with a dunk tank, and they probably weren't "ready" to try that again. I was totally unprepared for that reaction and caught off guard. Obviously I'm not going to push the issue, I'm happy to help with whatever they want, and if they don't want a dunk tank for whatever reason, then I'm happy to help in some other way. I'm just super curious now what the "issue" was that lead to a whole room full of people having that reaction - like, did some kid drown? Someone get seriously hurt? Was there a lawsuit? I'm literally perplexed. I'm hoping one of my neighbors might fill in the details for me.
- UPDATE 2 -- Re: Dunk tank drama Pete 23:06:14 1/20/2023
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- Re: UPDATE 2 -- Re: Dunk tank drama Ito 20:06:15 1/21/2023
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- Re: UPDATE 2 -- Re: Dunk tank drama Zonie 19:52:30 1/21/2023
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- Re: UPDATE 2 -- Re: Dunk tank drama LeviLovR 09:10:30 1/21/2023
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- Re: UPDATE 2 -- Re: Dunk tank drama kmf 00:56:11 1/21/2023
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- Re: UPDATE 2 -- Re: Dunk tank drama Ito 20:06:15 1/21/2023
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- Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Pete 04:27:49 1/13/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama mega 00:23:21 1/14/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Pete 11:40:06 1/14/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Pete 11:40:06 1/14/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Allwet 16:14:42 1/13/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Zonie 05:37:57 1/13/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Pete 11:39:08 1/14/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama Pete 11:39:08 1/14/2023
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- Re: Update -Re: Dunk tank drama mega 00:23:21 1/14/2023
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- Re: Dunk tank drama LeviLovR 03:22:37 1/12/2023
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