Seeking a Record

The year I entered the seventh grade, the year I learned how to do Round the World and Walk the Dog with my hardwood maple yoyo propelled with Slick 6 Cotton Poly Yoyo String, the year my best friend Ellen and I vowed to read only books with more than 300 pages, the year no one beat me at Pick-Up-Sticks, Ellen, Annie, Nina and I decided to do something astounding —set a world record. We all went to the library and poured over the Guinness Book of World Records.

Sir Hugh Beaver, who managed the Guinness beer brewery came up with the idea for the book while playing a trivia game at a pub. Did he foresee people vying for the chance to set a record, break a record?

How could he possibly know that on November 5, 2007 Jackie Bibby, aka The Texas Snake Man, sat in a bathtub with eighty-seven snakes — for forty-five minutes?

Or that on August 2, 2008 the people of Almeria province in Spain broke a record. Forty people sliced—tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onion, and hundreds of garlic cloves and using mammoth blenders blended everything. (An aside— they used vegetables untainted by pesticides). Five grueling hours later, when they poured the contents into a container the Guinness representative “confirmed that the container held 4520 litres of gazpacho— a new record.”

We read of feats. World records. Death defying stunts.
But we needed to attempt a simple record—no money, or nothing beyond our scant savings— and few props.

Ellen suggested ingesting insects. “There’s even a word, “ she said, “for the study of eating bugs—Entomophagy.” Ellen loved the dictionary.

Annie suggested wearing one colour for a year. We found no one claiming that record.

Nina suggested only speaking Pig Latin at home.
“Do it for a year and we’ll have a record.”
Seize the Day or Carpe Diem in Latin becomes arpe-Cay iem-Day in Pig Latin.

I suggested writing a journal entry every day—mirror image.

We never set any records, but we did speak Pig Latin at home for a week, wear the colour black for one week, and write mirror image journal entries for a week. Ellen ate four insects while we watched and gagged.

I am still fascinated with records. I follow the exploits of women who row across the ocean—like Roz Savage who rowed across the Atlantic. She’s now rowing across the Pacific.

“… I’d always intended to row the Pacific Ocean,” explains Roz. “I believe that if you don’t keep pushing the boundaries, your comfort zone will become smaller and smaller until you’re effectively shrink-wrapped…”

I missed out when on July 6, 2008 “Taiwan set a World Record by arranging for 1,008 people to have a foot massage simultaneously.”

Before I’m shrink-wrapped I need to think about records again.