a small victory: "For some reason they don't mind swimming in a dark, murky lake with a bottom so muddy that you have to wear sneakers in the water, where you have to swim with snakes and newts and mosquitoes and where you might get entwined in a crop of lily pads, which, as everyone knows, are really evil, living things and will wrap their vines around your legs so you can't move or swim and you'll find yourself pulled under the swampy water where some evil beaver will hold you down until you drown and then bury you in the mud to save you for winter dining."

One of the worst things my friends ever did to me was was just like this. We were waterskiing on Lake WInnebago and they drove over to the weedy part of the lake AND STOPPED THE BOAT! I slowed down and sank into the nastiest mass of weeds. The vines wrapped around my legs, started crawling into my swimsuit....... I still get the willies thinking about it 25 years later.