This has been with me for the past 44 years and it's about time I finally get it out. Every single time I watch that SpongeBob episode set at the beach, the scene near the end where it looks like he's drowned triggers this unpleasant memory.
When I was in my fourth year of existence (1973), Mary and Yoshiko took me to Santa Monica Beach. We rented a beach house and we planned to stroll down the pier and ride some rides and enjoy ourselves. But I, being a clueless, clumsy idiot back then, thought it'd be cool if I tried to swim so I could impress all the bikini babes. Besides, Mary and Yoshiko wanted to get a tan.
Well, here I am, in the water, and I have no idea how to swim. I only know I just kick my arms and feet to move. I do this until I'm, like, 10 feet out, and here comes a giant wave. So I try to go the other way, but because I'm a dumbass, I'm not going anywhere, and the wave fucking wipes me out. And then I start short-circuiting. I've got enough time to yell for the lifeguard, who comes over and saves me.
Mary and Yoshiko finally see that their artificial son is nearly dead (they didn't do jack shit when I was in the water) and they run over to me as the lifeguard performs CPR. They all wait for me to regain consciousness. And when I finally do:
"Come closer..." I say.
Everyone's all "thank goodness" and then the lifeguard says:
"Are you okay?"
And I say "Yes... I'm alive... thank you..." and I'm like "Mary and Yoshiko..." for no reason.
Then finally getting a sense of myself, I'm all:
"I was electrocuting from too much water! I didn't win a single one of these girls over! You two shoulda designed me to be waterproof! And why'm I in your arms anyway?"
We left afterwards because Mary and Yoshiko got their tan already.
Even though that last part is kinda hilarious looking back at it now, it was really traumatic back in the day. Thankfully, I got an upgrade shortly afterward so that I could, in fact, be waterproof. I've learned to swim now.
So yeah. That SpongeBob episode is actually really close to what happened, if not because the lifeguard had SpongeBob in his arms and SpongeBob said "come closer" as well.
Whatever.
