Swimming in the Toiletbowl
by Murray Baillargeon.

Just sitting around in my wheelchair on a sunny beach in Hawaii with a cold drink in my hand, my brother-in-law approached me and asked me if I wanted to go for a swim in the toiletbowl. Having had a few drinks, I thought I would go along with the joke. He tilted my wheelchair back and we proceeded across the lava rocks towards the far end of the cove, laughing at one another because we were precariously close to the edge of the water. It seemed to me that we'd gone on for miles with me bouncing along in the wheelchair. Part of the frame of the wheelchair broke but we continued to forge on. Upon arriving at the far point of the cove, my brother-in-law pointed and said "There's the Toiletbowl".

The bowl was worn hollow in the rocks and when the waves came in they rushed into the hollow through a small hole, filling it up just like when you flush the toilet. In fact it almost made the same sound. As the waves went back out, the water left the bowl from a different hole in the rocks. The water level dropped just like the water in the toilet.

My brother-in-law and another fellow helped pick me up out of the chair and put me in the bowl. There I was bobbing up and down like a cork and laughing heartily to myself, as the water flushed in and was sucked out, knowing no one would ever believe I swam in a toiletbowl.

Background Information

This story is about a place that looks like something else. Have you seen a potato chip that looked like someone's face or a cloud that looked like an animal? Or have you been to a place that looked like something you might find in your house (a rock that looks like a lamp or something like that)?

Questions

1. Where was Murray?

2. Did he think his brother-in-law was serious?

3. What is lava?

4. Did Murray have a good time?

5. What does the word precarious mean?

6. What happened to the wheelchair?

7. Do you think they should have kept going after the wheelchair broke?

8. Use the word forge as it's used in this story in a sentence.

9. What was the Toiletbowl?

10. Why do you think that Murray thought that no one would believe he swam in a toiletbowl?