Congratulations on Filling Up the Pool with Gummi Bears!

There are many ways to say “you’re a woman, congratulations!” You could do it with a heart shaped balloon or by hiring a mid-priced entertainer to show up and serenade your daughter. Or you could do it with pony rides and clown that no one likes who later fucks you wife while you’re trying to get the DJ to put on some Rush. Or you could do what you’re going to do: fill an entire pool with gummi bears.

“HOORAY!” your daughter will exclaim as she hurls herself forward into the pool. You’ll chortle good naturedly as you watch her sink into the mass of gelatin, sugar and food dye, waving goodbye to her sarcastically.

You and the rest of the batmitzvah goers will share a good laugh while you sit around the pool and wait for your beautiful young woman to rise above the tide of gummi bears anew. You’ll wait a solid ten minutes before you realize that your daughter isn’t coming out.

“HONEY!” you’ll shout into the gummi bear pit. The response will come from the bottom, muffled, desperate. She’ll be in trouble.

You’ll strip off your suit, remove your Bluetooth earpiece and lower yourself anxiously into the pool. Once you slip below the surface the gummi bears will mute the light above you. They’ll tumble into your mouth every time you open it and you’ll have to hold your hand over your face so that you can breathe.

“I’m coming honey!” you’ll shout into the multicolored array of sugary light that will become your world. Your daughter will shriek. It will be unclear if she is laughing or crying from the sound, which will make it that much worse.

When you find her she’ll be shaking uncontrollably. Her eyes will be closed and she won’t respond to your voice or your touch. She’ll just shake back and forth. Eventually she’ll let you hug her (she won’t have much choice in the matter) and you’ll stand that way together for almost two hours until the fire department arrives and devises a strategy for removing the two of you from the bottom of a pool filled with gummi bears.

When the two of you are returned to the surface your daughter will run inside the house and bury herself under her sheets, refusing to talk to anyone but her mother for days. When she finally does start speaking again she will talk only of the horror, of the sound that came from the bears, and of the encroaching terror of womanhood.

She’ll also develop an aversion to snacks which will lead to considerable weight loss. No one will care in high school, since she’ll be labeled the “gummi bear freak,” but in college, it’ll get her a lot of attention, and it’ll help her develop good self-esteem in non-gummi bear related situations in the future.

Congratulations on Filling Up the Pool with Gummi Bears!