This Floor is Made of What?

In other Pandemic related news, yesterday I woke up around noon and my wife was watching“The Floor is Made of Lava" on Netflix.

Not that there’s anything wrong with watching “The Floor is Made of Lava.” This is a free country. She can watch whatever she wants. It didn’t feel like a total cry for help, it was just…you know… the floor is made of lava, and I have cancer, and it just felt like an odd way to spend a Sunday.

To tell you the truth, I couldn’t tell what was weirder—the fact that she was watching “The Floor is Made of Lava” or that she was watching it in the back ground. But is there another way to watch “The Floor is Made of Lava.” Is it physically possible to watch that show on the edge of your seat?

“Shut up Davey! He’s about to make a jump and I don’t know if you are aware of this—BUT THE FLOOR IS MADE OF LAVA!!!”

I actually think that’s the most challenging part of the show. Forcing nine candidates to convince people they think they floor is made of lava. They’d have all done very well in my acting class. Even though I’d have a lot more respect for them if they called the show, “This Floor is Full of Exploding Power Ades.”

There are rules to the game. I should probably mention those now. Three teams, with three players, are competing for $10,000. They are attempting to get as many of their players from one side to the other in the fastest amount of time without falling into whatever liquid mixed with orange and red dye the floor happens to be made from. You know, the more I write this blog, the more I’m becoming convinced that this show isn’t real. That it is simply a product of my drug fueled brain. There is no Floor Made of Lava. There is simply a floor made of Diluadid mixed with Remeron.

But I’d be lying if I said the game wasn’t oddly engaging. Maybe it’s because the players are all goof balls and keep my attention. Maybe it’s a sign of how desperately I miss sports. Maybe it’s what the teams are going to spend the money on. It’s either flight attendants giving all the money to charity or waitresses going to blow the money in Cabo. That’s it. There’s no in-between.

Since I find the show so oddly oddly engaging, once it starts, I have a hard time pulling away.

Which is why yesterday I felt so desperately not to get sucked in.

I could have. No one would have cared. I could have racked it up to self care and no one would have judged me. But in the light of eternity, in the middle of radiation treatment, is this how I wanted to spend my afternoon?

No! It was a Sunday! Time is what we make of it. If we choose to make anything of it. And I would have been perfectly fine, sitting there watching The Floor is Lava. No one wold have judged me. I could have written it off as self care and no one would could have said a word. But I would have known. I would have have been aware of how I had spent my time. I would have known that I decided to stay inside on a hot summer day with the pool right there at the foot of my feet. Because no one has our backs. Maybe that’s what has hit me the most this summer. Our futures are literally what we and we alone make of them.

So I asked Jaimie if she wanted to go and sit by the pool, and like the boss she is, she said yes. It seemed like a revolutionary request, especially with the virus threatening about. But the pool was empty. Like dead empty. There were six feet concentric circles every where we looked. We even sat in the water and the chill of the liquid mixed with the heat of the sun was magical.

We sat there for at least an hour and a half, basically alone, before a big group came in and took our place. We got sucked into other late afternoon activities—I ordered us pizza and she went to Old Navy. But I was just proud that we did it. That we got out. That we avoided that original temptation.

That yesterday we tasted of the world and we saw, we knew, that is was made of deeper stuff than a floor made of lava.