Icy & Hot... Great Idea...

This may be one of the dumbest moves ever by a surfer. And, it was done by yours truly! It is a true story. Well, most of it is.

My buddies and I grew up in the white ghetto. We were so broke that when we would go surfing, we would have to share one board. Ok, maybe not that broke. We had our own boards. They were not new or ever top of the line but they were ours. We cut grass and washed cars to earn the money to buy them. We were proud of what we had. Our parents didn’t buy them for us because we asked. We didn’t even go there.

The one thing that we never owned were wetsuits. In order for us to go out, the waves had to be slamming. And if they were, we would paddle our numb and dumb asses out in it. Nothing but shorts on. Our sessions would typically last about 30 minutes. 15 to 20 minutes of that time would be trying to get our muscles to stop cramping long enough to paddle out. Catch a wave or two and then shake our shit back to shore. We looked like blue aliens when we got out. That’s dedication…. Some would call it stupidity.

We were all 15 years old back in the time this story takes place. We had the world by the balls. Well, at least we thought we did.

One day, three of us went out on a freezing Feb afternoon. Waves were cranking. One of my buds said we should try something to help keep us warm in the water. We would be able to surf for at least an hour or more at a time. Anything to help us stay even just a little warmer, we would be all ears. He reached into his backpack and grabbed a container called Icy-Hot. We didn’t know what the hell it was. He said it will warm your muscles up. It would really get down deep and that would help us fight off the cramps and keep us warmer in the water. Made sense to us. I was down with that shit. I took it and went to town. Anything beat death in that water.

We spent about 10 minutes rubbing Icy-Hot into our skin. And I mean, we put it on nice and heavy too. Grabbed our boards and started walking towards to water. Man, this is great. I could feel that shit starting to get me nice and warm. It was like I was wearing jeans and a shirt. Toasty. We all just looked at each other smiling. Thinking that we had beat Mother Nature. Today would be epic!

We hit the water with a renewed sense of pride. It was like we were superhuman or something. Water temp was around 55 degrees or so. First, it felt like getting into a toasty warm tub. This was nice. I could stay out all day now.

After about 10 minutes, our bodies started getting a little warmer. Nope. Fuck that. It was slowly becoming a burning sensation. We’re all paddling out and all having the same thing happen. Moans and groans from each one of us. Straight out hell on our skin. I rubbed that shit between my toes. My back. The back of my neck. In my armpits. Fucking everywhere man. We couldn’t tell what the water temp was with this stuff on. Truth was, it was starting to feel as if my legs were melting off of my body. My armpits felt like needles were being stuck in me. My neck felt like a rope was around it. One of my bros even put the shit on his face. He later told me it was like being stuck over a campfire without being able to pull your head back. What the hell did we do to ourselves? Just maybe it would wash off in the water. Nope. Not a chance.

We lasted all of about 15 minutes in the water before we all came back in. Grabbing towels to rub the toxic shit off as fast as we could. Two of us wanting to kick our friend’s ass for even bringing Icy-Hot out of his backpack. Thankfully, not one of us put any on our sack. At least, none of us would have admitted to it. Then again, you can’t hide that pain.

That was the last winter that we ever went out without owning our own wetsuits….

~RS

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