I walked in the family room to laughter. On my way there, my kids told me that there was this girl on the TV with arm floaties on, scared to go down a water slide. I looked up and saw a black man on the screen. I instantly wondered if it was another black non-swimmer on the TV embarrassing herself.

No, actually it was a white woman. And she never did get the nerve to go down the water slide.

Neither black man in line behind her, however, hesitated to go down the slide. I later heard that there were sharks in the pool at the base of the water slide.

What have we learned here? Swim skills get you through The Amazing Race? Folks that can’t swim are funny? Or don’t judge a book by its cover? Insert cliche here?

Halle Berry is not afraid of the water. Here she takes her baby swimming, and she is set to play a diving instructor in an upcoming movie. In Deep Tide, set to begin taping this summer, Halle will play a diver who escaped a near fatal shark attack.

I don’t think I could watch that. It took me YEARS to get over Jaws! The idea of returning to the deep after being attacked by a shark? Not for the kid! I wonder if she gets a stunt double? Or will the shark?

Did you hear about the Italian swimmer whose suit split right in the backside?

I can’t imagine the embarrassment. And I shudder to think what it would have been like if she’d had a bigger backside.

Kind of erases the whole aerodynamic swimsuit advantage, don’tcha think?

This is my youngest son a few years ago. He is the only child of six who doesn’t love the water. The day of this picture, we’d gone to a local lake to swim on a hot day. He usually didn’t like the water, and would play in the sand at the shore. But the day was hot, and the water was comfortable, and shallow. So, after watching his older brothers and sisters frolic and play in the water, my young son tried to follow them. And he fell down. I picked him up in a hurry, but the look on his face says it all: ‘I can’t believe you let me fall!’

The moral of the story? The same as all the morals over here: teach your child to swim. Or something. Maybe there is no moral to this story. Ahem. And I’ll be sure he learns how to swim, too.

Once upon a time, we were broke. And I spent some of our last money on goggles. Three pairs, to be exact. I had four kids in swimming, and they all needed goggles except for the boy.

They were nice goggles, which lasted longer than they would have, since we quit swimming a few months later.

One by one, they started breaking or disappearing. First, my younger daughter broke her fancy goggle strap. Then she lost her goggles.

I started swimming after my kids quit the swim team. I had my own goggles, which I constantly adjusted while I swam. This came in handy while I was building up my stamina. I’d swim a 25 and stand at the deep end and defog or adjust my goggles.

After a few months of that, I started using my daughter’s goggles. They were cool, Nike goggles with fancy straps that didn’t constantly come loose. I wore them for years.

And then they mysteriously disappeared. Goggles are light-weight and easy to drop undetected. I hope whoever found them is getting some good use out of them. They were metallic shades. ..

My younger daughter wore my goggles at a friend’s above ground pool last week. They have disappeared.

Then my middle daughter’s goggles lost their integrity. The plastic by the nose is holding by a thread. She doesn’t wear them if she isn’t desperate.

So, yesterday, before the swim test, I broke down and bought my oldest daughter a pair of goggles. And. .. myself. I mean, I can’t start swimming again without goggles.

During the swim test, the little children were swimming. They tried for a while without goggles, but then my middle daughter came and used her big sister’s goggles, and the younger daughter actually took the baby goggles out of her baby sister’s hands. I saw how much they will actually try to swim if they are wearing goggles, so I broke down today and bought them both a new pair of goggles.

I was lamenting having lost so many pairs of goggles with my older son. He had no sympathy. “Goggles are like socks, Mom,” he told me.

Did you hear the one about the man that ran out of the courtroom trying to escape judgment? He jumped into a river and drowned.

That really happened a month ago in Florida.

The moral of the story? Either, you can’t run away from the long arm of the law, or. . . you should really learn how to swim.

prolly both