Ice Bucket Challenged. Part 2.

……..and breathe out.

3. At this point time will stand still as one gets a chance to consider the container around which the success of the whole challenge orbits. There is no such thing as a truly successful delivery, and no, I’m not going to prove it by doing one, it’s already pretty clear I think they’re very shit. I have seen people using seaside buckets with a capacity smaller than that of a squirrel’s skull. Oooh, ahhh, feebly cries the challenged (on several levels) person as a faint dribble of tap water runs down their back. Sometimes there is a suspicious lack of ice in the equation. Science has not yet given us the ability to feel temperature purely through gawping at a computer screen but all I’ll say is that the lukewarm water challenge is even more shit and you know who you are. At least suffer for a second or two, I’m trying to enjoy this! At the opposite end of the scale come the moments when the water deliverer or deliverers suddenly realise they have opted for a container far bigger than that which they can control. It’s like watching the world’s strongest man competition as they try to put the last and biggest spherical boulder on a barrel, but realise they have no energy left. As you do. Pencil thin children heave, legs stagger and buckle, as a 7 year old kid and their 11 year old sibling with a stress induced early onset eating disorder attempt to hold up AND overturn a 220 litre capacity wheelie bin or something equally inappropriate. Is it filled with feathers Dad, they ask before lifting. No kids, it’s filled with water, the heavy as rocks water which weighs lots. The three possible outcomes of this are:

a. The wheelie bin collapses at an awful angle, pitching 220 litres of fresh water straight onto the ground, two feet in front of Darth. Instead of being hit by the water Darth is hit by an empty wheelie bin on the side of the head, possibly having an ear ripped off in the process. This hurts and criminal amounts of fresh, drinkable water are wasted, lost to humanity until the water cycle does its miraculous job. Note for where I’m going here – the water cycle doesn’t work properly in raging hot countries where people would sell their mothers and their own legs for a glass of water they can drink and that doesn’t result in their internal organs dropping out of their arseholes the next time they try to have a poo.

b. The full wheelie bin miraculously reaches its vertical apex before the tiny, weak sprogs drop it, still full and with some force, directly onto Darth’s waiting skull and shoulders. Darth pitches forward in agony, swearing profusely, in such pain that a simple gasp of breath would be pointless. As his fun loving, oblivious little fucking children leap up and down with joy Mrs Vader looks at her husband’s limp, inert form splayed out on the ground and then worriedly at the iPhone cock who is filming. He’s not moving she cries. Darth, darling, can you hear me? Turn that fucking thing off for Christ’s sake……   Meanwhile the water has gone EVERYWHERE, and then seeps into the ground and again criminal amounts of fresh, drinkable H2O are wasted.

c. The full wheelie bin nearly reaches its vertical apex before, in slow motion, and to the horror of Mrs Vader (Darth is not party to this part of the sequence as he gurns, witless, at the camera) it pivots back and plummets down onto the children. One child is drenched and knocked sideways, shattering through the side of the greenhouse, their fall broken by the only cucumber that Darth has managed to cultivate all bloody summer. Simultaneously the other cherub has at least their jaw and several fingers broken. As the cameraman quite rightly starts to laugh Darth spins round, woken from his mental fuckwittedness by the collective screams of his family. Oh you wanker Darth, look what you’ve done hisses Mum. Oh kids, I’m so sorry soothes Dad (actually thinking – how the hell is this my fault woman, I wasn’t even looking etc??!! The jury’s out Darth, mate, the jury is always out). The iPad wielding nobhead switches their humanity destroying device off. Oh yes, I almost forgot, criminal amounts of fresh, drinkable water are wasted.

In the event that the perfect sized container had been used there would have been a fair chance that we could have reached a rare point of very faint success. Bucket poured and wet, shivering, laughing/grimacing person stands up as audience cackle away and then it’s all over.

There is a Part 3. Oh joy.

G B Hewitt. Still 21.11.2015