How it feels

Imagine I have fallen off the ship and am flailing in the ocean. I call out for help, and when someone comes, they ask me what happened.

I said, “My husband pushed me off the boat!” 

So they turn to my husband and say, “What happened?” 

He says, “She pushed me into the water!” 

They turn back to me and say, “Is that true?” 

I say, “Help! It’s getting really hard for me to stay afloat! I’m afraid I’m going to drown!” 

They say, “Did you push your husband into the water though?”

And I say, “Well, yes, there was that time I pushed him into the baby pool. I guess I deserve to be struggling to stay afloat,” while he sits there in the baby pool.

Meanwhile, I swim over to the other side of the boat and call for help. They throw me a life preserver which provides some relief. I ask them to help me get out of the water, but I tell them I don’t want to be rescued to my husband, because he might just push me back in. A month later I call for help again, and they say, “Oh, I thought you said you didn’t need to be rescued.” 

So then I swim to another side of the boat and call for help. They say they have a how-to-swim class that I need to pay for, so I pull out my soggy money that I was going to use to get home, and pay for the how-to-swim class. So I start swimming and getting stronger. So I swim to another side of the boat and ask for help to pull me out, and they say, “Oh, I see you have a life preserver. You should be good!” 

I say I need a ladder, and they say, “Sorry, we don’t have any ladders here, but you could use your phone and order one online!” So I pull out my soggy phone and try to order a ladder. Turns out, they don’t deliver to ships in the middle of the ocean. But my husband is still there, and has been watching me the whole time, making sure everyone knows I pushed him into the water too.

I am starting to get very tired and it’s hard for me to stay afloat, even with the life preserver, because I have to hold on for dear life. I am almost ready to give up. Others are saying to me, “You know, you could just climb out.” It’s then that I start sinking.