Ringworm or Puke in the Pool. Take Your Pick.

Today's mission should you choose to accept is to guess which story is true and which one is the April Fool's. It's all part of April's Blog Exchange, though um, we're not really exchanging any one's blog this time... See more stories true or false here.

During my freshman year of college a group of girls and I, OK about half my hall, would regularly hang out at a nearby fraternity house. Friday night? We were at the house. Saturday afternoon? Probably playing flip cup and eating pizza at the house. Saturday night? Still at the house. The wee small hours of the morning? You got it. We were at that house. It's not that the guys were especially hot or that they were even that charismatic but for some reason we all took a liking to each other. Then one day as I was sitting on my bed I noticed a little dry patch on the back of my upper arm. Scaly even. Huh. What could it be? I scratched. I showed it to my roommate. She skeeved out completely and scrambled across her bed away from me making a yuck face. "Ick! That's sick! You have ringworm!" Ring what? Never heard of it. Puritanical New Englanders do not get worms. Even those that come bearing rings.

The next morning as I walked down the hall I noticed something. My friend had a big red scaly patch on her cheek and her neck. Uh-Oh. So did her roommate. And another girl. And another. That's right. About half of us had either a mild (me) case or totally flamboyant (cheek girl, it was almost six inches of worm) degree of this nasty thing called Ringworm. Lest, you think we were all a bunch of ho-bags living in some seething nest of nastiness it boiled down the some particularly nasty couches that we all sat on, passed out on, or simply squished our then tiny butts on for hours on end. A little bit of anti-fungal cream and we were all better but it sure tainted our view of that house and for the most part none of us ever went back.

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In high school, I had a pool. It wasn't some ginormous Olympic-sized thing but it served its purpose and was great to hang out around in the hot summer months. Almost every day E and I would lounge by the pool reading Seventeen, Glamour and Cosmo talking about her weird shedding skin ailment, drinking on the sly and soaking up the suns weak New England rays. E would get this amazing tan and I would look tan only if I stood next to a white wall.

We spent a lot of time experimenting with the likes of our friends vodka, gin and rum. Vodka we quickly realized was highly versatile and we could make these fun little drinks called, Chi-Chi's. We felt so grown up using the blender, crushing ice sipping Chi-Chi's, Cape Codders and Greyhounds by the pool. Until one day we uh, did all three. Back to back on empty teen stomachs. There might have been a few other suggestions from our friends rum and gin too. Not the best idea at the time or in hindsight but when A-ha, Annie Lennox and some gem of a mix tape or two are blaring away and the sun is shining by the glistening pool it all seems in good fun.

It's all fun and games until someone pukes in the pool isn't it?

They puke in the pool and you try in vain to clean it up fast with a mixture of throwing it over the side, using the skimmer and just shoving water into that thingy that collects leaves and frogs. Then you try to act sober and not horrified when your Dad comes home from work early and decides to take a dip in the pool. Which on the surface looks clean but well, we all knew better.

*If you guessed the ringworm story then you are correct! While I did have a pool growing up and I did drink by it with E, no one ever threw up in or around it.