Luna Sea reigns

We OWN the Eastern Toilet Squat.

In the Sea Olympics, every event has the same number of points.  There are 9 seas, so first place in any event gets 9 points.  This means that the person who comes in first in the (random) game of Captain, wave, ship earns the same number of points as the team that prevails in volleyball.  No points awarded for difficulty here!  (The point system is actually a bit more complicated for the sports with brackets.)

Like other Olympiads, competitions take place simultaneously at venues all over the ship.  The games started at 1000, with Jeopardy, Ping Pong, Dodgeball, and the Eastern Toilet Squat.  Having spent the first half of the hour watching Jeopardy, I wandered aft to see what else was happening.  There was an enthusiastic crowd around classroom 4, where the toilet squat was down to two competitors, my work study (from the Adriatic Sea) and my teammate Rachel.  For 40 minutes, these two had been going squat to squat, hands raised above their heads, feet flat on the ground, on deck 6 of a rocking ship. In a room of screaming people. 

Both of them looked a little green.  They were definitely trembling.  Heidi’s teammates shouted, “It’s one point.  No one will think the less of you if you quit.”  Her arms dropped below her shoulders.  She pulled them back up.  Rachel called for a judge’s ruling.  Finally, it was over.   The judge lifted Heidi to a standing position and the toilet squat was Rachel’s.  Her Luna Sea teammates howled our approval.

At noon, Luna Sea is in first place, having won the banner and Ping Pong and come in second in Jeopardy and pull ups.  Very poor showing in Ninja and Captain, ship, wave.  More to come.

And in late breaking news from Thailand, I hear from our hotel director Stefan that squat toilets have been banned.  The government is concerned about a high incidence of arthritis in the knees.  Stefan, who lives in Thailand with his Thai wife, points out that people spend a great deal of their time squatting in places other than toilets, so the ban is not likely to affect arthritis in Thailand. 

However, we who cannot squat thank you.