This is an excerpt from a larger list, where I give various activities a Sober Fun rating of 1-10. Entries from this list are scattered throughout my website, or you can find that complete list HERE.

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Swimming: 6

I suck at swimming, so instead of giving a Sober Rating to something I am not really able to do under any circumstances— drunk, sober, or otherwise— I have decided instead to tell you about floating in the Dead Sea.

So why did I still choose to call this entry “Swimming,” if that’s not really what it’s about? Well, Narc, because I already wrote an entry about ANOTHER KIND OF FLOATING, and don’t know what else to call that one. Plus, you can kind of swim in the Dead Sea... sort of? If you want to call it that... and I do. There. Happy?

"Swimming" in the Dead Sea gets a Sober Fun rating of 6, but only for about 30 minutes, and the only reason it gets that high of rating is because it involves so much history and science-y stuff. But ultimately, it gives a new meaning to "painfully boring."

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One of the most nefarious and easily justifiable reasons a recovering alcoholic might be tempted drink alcohol again is out of boredom. A close second, is when there is burning salt in your penis hole.

But in a rare feat that I heretofore believed was impossible, the Dead Sea is able to achieve both of these two things simultaneously.

With as much as I enjoy WHITE WATER RAFTING it might surprise you to learn that I’m not a very strong swimmer. With white water rafting, my secret is just to NEVER FALL OUT OF THE RAFT, HEATHER, because even in calm waters, my swimming technique looks a lot like drowning. To be clear, I’m not actually drowning—usually—but with all the splashing and flailing I can see how it might look that way to bystanders, especially to a lifeguard or other activity supervisor, whose job it is to save people who are flailing and splashing. My scuba instructor, for example, seriously considered not advancing me to the next level, all because my swimming form is so hideous, and looks so upsettingly similar to someone that needs saving.

But I told him what I tell everyone— I employ what I like to think of as a sort of a next-level, high-intensity, dog paddling. Could I ever sneak up on someone or swim past you unnoticed? No. Probably not. There’s just too much commotion involved in my technique to allow for any covert maneuvers. But I can assure you, I’m not drowning, and if forced, I could probably even win a small race against children, the elderly, or someone who’s never swam before.

I also realized that no matter how hard I tried, I am simply incapable of floating on my back; and it’s one of the skills you are supposed to master in scuba training before they are technically allowed to advance you to the next level. I tried to suggest to my instructor that it was because I had such a low percentage of body fat, but I don’t think he was buying it. Especially since shortly thereafter, we all watched another student (an emaciated guy with visible ribs) float all around the training pool on his back like he was lying flat in a lawn chair. So who knows. Not being able to float on my back is a sore spot for me. Which is why I have chosen to tell you about swimming in the Dead Sea, a body of water where you can do nothing but float.

Now, everyone brace yourselves, and sit back while I attempt to mansplain the Dead Sea to you. If I sat down and did a bunch of research about this, then I would feel obligated to tell you everything I learned, so in the interest of brevity I’m just going to wing it.

The Jews had been wandering around in the desert for an eternity, without much food or water to drink, and they were understandably upset. Occasionally, God would give them mana, which was little bread flakes He threw down from the sky like snow. I often wondered why He didn’t give them something else to go with it, perhaps some fish (like Jesus did), but then I thought it through. Just like the stories we hear of people being killed by a penny thrown off the Empire State Building, because it gathered up too much speed on the way down and essentially became a bullet, fish coming from the sky would have picked up too much speed. Then you’d just have a bunch of Jews lying in the desert, knocked unconscious by sky fish, maybe even killed. Especially if it was something larger like a mackerel... so that makes total sense.

Anyways, the Jews were tired and thirsty and hungry, when one day, they all journey over the crest of a hill. They had been traveling in the desert for a while, so I’m assuming they had on SANDALS. At the top of this hill they looked down to see the most glorious sight, a huge body of water. This meant they could not only refresh themselves with water, but there would be fish and all sorts of other aquatic things for them to eat, too.

So they ran like crazy down the hill to the body of water, so excited were they about this huge lake that God had finally provided for them. But when they reached the body of water, it turned out to be another one of God’s funny little jokes.

The lake had such a high salt content that not only could nothing live in it, it was also completely undrinkable. I don’t know if they called it The Dead Sea because nothing could survive in its waters, or because so many of them died trying to drink it, but either way, it was extremely disappointing.

Thousands of years later, it is still disappointing.

I want to take a second to emphasize here that while it is super cool that the salt content of The Dead Sea creates a density that enables you to float on top of its surface, I would not advise planning a whole trip, or even a whole day, around this sea. There are some things that might not occur to you until you are actually there, such as how little there is to do in a body of water that won’t allow you to fish in it, drink it, or even really swim in it.

Like a dumbass, I made the mistake of going underwater right off the bat, so immediately I had salt in both my mouth and in my eyes. Got it. Note to self: no going underwater.

The novelty of floating on top of it wears off almost immediately, and then you are left splashing about in a saline solution that makes your entire body feel like it’s on fire. You are going to suddenly realize you have cuts you never knew you had, not to mention entrances to your body that you usually do not think much about.

Ah. But you will now!

Also, another fun fact, we were told that if we accidentally floated outside the bounds of our tiny, designated area, then we might get shot. Yes, shot by actual bullets, from guns, being fired by people on the opposite Jerusalem side of the sea. It turns out, people on both sides of this sea are very protective of their little portion of this terrible body of water (that you can do nothing with), and will protect with their lives the ability to not drink it, fish in it, or swim in it.

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The only thing more irritating than the Dead Sea, was a guy that we were traveling with on this trip through Jordan. Let’s call him Dwight.

Maria and I had tried to sneak down to the Dead Sea without Dwight noticing, so we could experience it alone, without his constant moaning and complaining, but alas, he quickly found us.

“Oh god, here he comes,” I whispered to Maria.

“What is he wearing?” she whispered back.

He had globs of neon white sunscreen striped all over his face like war paint, and was wearing a tiny, bizarre, pair of swim trunks that I have no point of reference for. The only thing missing was a big rubber seahorse around his waist.

To be completely honest, he could have been impeccably dressed for the beach and it wouldn’t have mattered. This man had a grating, whining, sniveling way about him that I found absolutely insufferable. The only saving grace is that he wasn’t my roommate. I probably would have killed him.

“Oh my god! Is your penis tingling?” he said, shortly after entering the water.

Ugh. This guy was just the worst, and the last thing I wanted was for him to swim over to me with his tingly penis, so we could talk about it, so I lied. “No!” I yelled back. “That sounds awful, you should probably get out!”

In my defense, it wasn’t a complete lie, my penis wasn’t tingling, it was burning. His would be too, just give it a minute. You eventually get used to it, and it just becomes a sort of low-key annoyance that you can mostly ignore, but I had no intention of telling Dwight that.

“My weenie feels like it’s on fire, you guys!”

Ah, there it is. Told you, it just takes a minute. It gets worse before it gets better.

I wish I could say the same thing about the Dead Sea, but unfortunately, it just continues getting worse and worse the longer you are in it. The corners of my mouth and eyes felt like they were beginning to blister, and I realized that that my legs were covered in small cuts and scrapes from our time spent earlier in the week, scrambling around in the Wadi Rum Desert. Well, they didn’t feel small anymore.

Maria had gotten out and covered herself in thick brown mud like she’d seen others doing, but it was unclear what therapeutic properties this salty mud might have, if any. She looked as if she was about to perform some sort of offensive minstrel show. Oh, and the only way to get it off, of course, was to reenter the salty sea of burning and boredom.

Hey, that’s a pretty catchy and accurate name for this body of water, The Sea of Burning and Boredom. Hear that, Jordan and Jerusalem? A catchy new name for y’all to fight about.

And Maria, please take off that blackface before we end up on YouTube.

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If you were hoping I'd talk more about penises in the water, TRY THIS!