Have you ever noticed that land-based sports seem ridiculous when played in a swimming pool? Dance is beautiful. Synchronized swimming is bizarre. Polo is exciting. Water polo is unwatchable. Competitive swimming is just racing made slower by holding the contest in water.
You do not need a swimming pool to make a sport slower and the contestants more awkward. Just have the athletes take performance deteriorating drugs. Think, Drunk Olympics, or Hashish World Cup.
What would happen if, I recently mused, an already dull land-based sport, was played in water, by chemically impaired athletes? That’s three levels of weirdness! Thus was born the sport of Aqua Badminton.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that I just strung a badminton net across a pool and then played the game with some drunk friends. Not so! That would be absurd!
First my drunk friends and I had to develop new rules.
In badminton, a perfect shot sends the shuttlecock across the net to a location that is inbounds, but just outside your opponent’s reach. In Aqua Badminton, your opponent is chest-deep in water. His movements are so restricted that even a heavily intoxicated player can score an ace on nearly every serve. We had to modify the game’s foundation.
In Aqua Badminton, the goal is to keep the birdie in play. You get a point if the opponent does not return the birdie. Unless, that is, your shot was so skillfully placed that it was inbounds, but not reasonably returnable, in which case your opponent gets the point. It is not unusual to hear my opponent say, “Dan, you delivered a perfect shot: the birdie was inbounds, but just out of my reach. So that was MY point!”
Of course we do not want to discourage players from striving to return excessively well-placed shots. Therefore, if a player heroically leaps to return a birdie that was not reasonably returnable, he gets a point simply for making contact with the birdie, and another point if it lands on the opponent’s side, inbounds, and is not returned. In this instance, and only this instance, the player will not be penalized for a perfectly placed shot.
The birdie is served by whichever player happens to have grasped it. If your serve fails to cross the net, the opponent scores. If the birdie lands out of bounds, the opponent scores. And, of course, if your service is absolutely perfect (inbounds, but not reasonably returnable), the opponent scores. The game continues until someone needs to pee or get another drink.
You may think there should be an umpire to declare whether, for example, a shot was reasonably returnable. The game is rife with judgment calls. However, for reasons we do not fully understand, Aqua Badminton scoring disputes always end with everyone laughing like tickled two-year-olds. Of course we have yet to finish a game knowing for sure who won. We inevitably have only a vague notion of whether anyone earned more or less than 100 points.
You may think this uncertainty a drawback, but we expect it will keep our sport unblemished by organized gambling.
We are forming an Aqua Badminton league. If you have a swimming pool, and are interested in joining the league, we will temporarily waive all costs and fees. However, we will need to inspect your facilities, just to be sure they meet our exacting standards.
You will need to supply liquor during the inspection process.
