I thought I had the perfect swimsuit for the waterslide

A different swimsuit

This was at the pools at Toshimaen, where they had a waterslide.

My friends wore those loose, shorts-style swimsuits. But I’d been a swimmer in middle and high school, so I wore men’s swim briefs. Even at Toshimaen.

We were all taking turns on the waterslide. My friends weren’t going that fast. I put it down to the drag from their baggy shorts. Me, I had these little boomerang-shaped briefs, and my sliding form was perfect. Great form, hardly any swimsuit—I figured there was no friction.

I was going incredibly fast.

Then something happened that sounds made up, but wasn’t.

You know how you skip stones across a river? A flat stone goes skimming across the surface: skip, skip, skip.

That’s what happened to me. At the bottom of the slide, my body went skim, skim, skim—right across the pool. I went past the water’s edge and onto the gravelly concrete.

Scrrrape. The friction from my back finally stopped me.

I was scraped raw.

My whole back was bloody!