The first signs of insanity began with the toe sucking. 

I have a story to tell.  One night as Marla and I sat on our couch at home watching TV, I asked Marla for permission to suck her toe.  (Yes, I was sober.)  I told her that as part of my preparation for the story about the hob tub activities, I needed to understand more about the toes. 

I said, "Maybe we are missing something here."

Marla rolled her eyes, but acquiesced. "If you must, go ahead."  Then she stuck out her foot.  She figured if I was going to write another lousy Travel story, she wasn't going to take any blame by not helping me as much as she could.

I gently wrapped my lips around her toe and brought it inside my mouth. Then I began to suck away. 

Although it only took me ten seconds to make up my mind, I gave it a full minute.  I concluded that toe sucking wasn't even remotely any fun.  But maybe Marla enjoyed it.

So I asked Marla what she thought.  She said, "It sucked."  

In other words, neither of us could detect even the slightest possible pleasure in toe sucking. 

Maybe I should try it again sometime when I am drunk.  Or maybe it is a symbolic activity of some sort that leads to other things. 

Who knows?  I remain clueless.  It seems like a scam to me.  I think they are all a bunch of suckers.

As you can see, toe sucking was an extremely popular activity for some.  However, let's be clear that not everyone participated. 

In fact, I would say the culprits were limited to about half a dozen people.

Phyllis, one of the ringleaders, didn't get involved.  In every picture I saw, the Center of Attention seemed totally content to just watch (see picture below on the right)

Phyllis wasn't alone in her watching. In fact, lots of people stared in astonishment -see Betty in the picture above or Cary Grant in the picture below).

Furthermore, others such as the woman below on the right actually attempted to talk people out of continuing to suck toes.  In this case I don't think she was successful.  If I see the picture correctly, there are four different feet begging for love.

Someone prepared for a week of furious toe sucking by drawing a unique design on one of her toes.  Now who could that be?

There is a sad ending to the story of the pretty toes.  As it was related to me, at one point the woman screamed, "Oh my gosh, he sucked the paint right off my favorite toe!"   I guess even toe sucking carries its hazards.

I have no idea who the sucker was, but I examined the pictures carefully to acquire the identity of the suckee.

Okay, how did you do?  Were you able to find Walda in both pictures above?  If so, good for you!  You may have also noticed that the Group toe sucking activity has begun in earnest.  Obviously someone said, "On your mark, get set, go!" because they are at it with a passion. 

Now in the pictures below, two things. One, can you find Walda again?  Two, wouldn't you love to why Mr. Handsome has his hands up?  My guess is a toe is making its way to his face and he isn't in the mood at the moment. Or maybe Alph clocked him in the nose with her feet.  Or maybe someone stole his Gatorade.

Please notice there are bodies flying everywhere, but Walda just continues to sit there watching quietly.  It's kind of like a nudist colony where everyone strips but one person.   Walda is a stranger in a strange land.

In the two pictures below, it looks like Walda is actually interviewing the man next to her.  Maybe she is trying to figure out what the heck the going on.  

"Excuse me, Mr. Toe Sucker sir, but do you think this hot tub toe sucking might be a modern day equivalent to the ancient Roman orgies?" 

Doesn't it look like he takes the foot out of his mouth so he can think about it before he answers the question?

Amid the splashing and the insanity, Walda continued to sit serenely in the eye of the hurricane.  There were no incriminating pictures of Walda.  Whatever was going on, she appeared to be immune to temptation. 

Not everyone can be that cool.  By comparison, Marla told me she panicked when the crazy stuff started.  Marla got out of the tub as fast as she could.  But Walda was obviously made of tougher skin.  She clearly enjoyed the arena.  It was definitely a busy day for the Gladiators struggling to survive in the steaming cauldron of hot tub oblivion.

You know, the more I look at these hot tub pictures, the more I am reminded of another ancient lapse of judgment known as the 1989 SSQQ Toga Party.  This particular party got so badly out of control, we never had another one (and probably never will.)

Hmm. There's something odd about the picture below on the right.  That girl is looking at over her shoulder at someone.
Is that Walda?

As we return to the action, Walda continues to grin and smile.  You might notice that the Center of Attention is also a non-combatant. 

I have never seen a picture of Phyllis participating in hot tub debauchery.  Phyllis has a particular hot tub agenda of her own.  Phyllis always seems to be encouraging other people to lose control... and once they lose control, she takes a picture. 

But not this time. Phyllistina is in the pictures, not taking them.  I wonder who the photographer is?  Phyllis probably gave someone her camera and told them to get to work.

One woman on the trip decided to practice her pole dancing skills among other things.  Surely she knew cameras were lurking nearby.  What was she thinking?   If forced to guess what caused this behavior, I would say she got drunk.

Last year in 2005 someone made a mistake so serious that it spoiled an entire afternoon of serious hot tub stuffing. 

At that time, Phyllis was positive that SSQQ had set a new record for the "Most Humans in a Rhapsody Hot Tub" at one time.  In fact, she was so confident that she didn't bother summoning me for confirmation. Instead she emailed me the pictures later on.

After I got back to Houston and took the time to examine the pictures, I had to disqualify one of the participants.  This cost Phyllis and the 2005 Hot Tub Team their record. 

Phyllis was furious at the news one of her Stuffers had come unstuffed and missed the tub.  You know, there really are not a lot of skills necessary to become a good tub stuffer.  Mostly you just need to get your butt in the water.  Now how hard can that be?  Every kid grows up hearing, "You better get your butt in the tub this minute or else!"

But in this 2005 incident, a woman made a fatal error by failing to properly insert her butt in the hot tub.  A miss is as good as a mile, but in this case the woman failed by a "wide margin".

This year, just like Groundhog Day, Center of Attention was determined to do it again and again till her new hot tub team got it right.  She intended to make up for last year's butt debacle. 

However the entire week was fraught with errors. Phyllis had to train an entire new generation how to stuff the tub properly.  There were very few returning butts from last year.  Alas, the new guys just couldn't get it.  It seems like a lot of the butts were not pulling in the same direction.  You need to align your butts just right to maximize the tub's stuffing potential. 

Phyllis screamed at them, "You people are simply not paying attention!  Get your head out of your butts!"

Phyllis had another obstacle - many of the butts were out of shape. Phyllis said she had never seen so many wide butts in all her years of tub stuffing.  16 people seemed to be the natural fit, but Phyllis was determined to get the number well above 20.  To do that, she would have to whip their butts into shape pronto.

The road was never easy. Despite an entire week of failure, Phyllis was not to be denied.  She never wavered in the face of the constant negativity... "But my butt can't do it!  But my butt is tired!  But my butt has a butt cramp!  But my butt is pruning!  But I have to go wee wee!   But I am too drunk to center my butt properly!"  Phyllis told them all to shut up. She would not have any more ifs, ands, or butts. It was time to shape up or ship out!  "You people simply are not trying hard enough!  You are the biggest bunch of lazy butts!  Now get your butts moving and let's make this happen!"

What a great pep talk!

I don't know how she did it.  I would have given up long ago and thrown their butts overboard, but not Phyllis.  She had a steely determination.  Despite all this whining and sniveling, there was NO QUIT when it came to the Center of Attention.

A lot of you may not realize this, but Phyllis studied the ancient pyramids in preparation for this record-setting event.  She was determined to leave nothing to chance. Phyllis quickly grasped that the height of a pyramid is related to the size of its base. Therefore she would have to widen the perimeter of the hot tub circle by one more person so she could stack people on top.  So Phyllis began to whip their butts into shape - literally.  Through constant butt squeeze exercises, the butts started to tighten. Phyllis helped everyone take one to two inches off of their butts.  But try as they could, they could not squeeze one more butt in the tub.  Phyllis had no choice.  She had to start spanking them.  Phyllis was a giant pain in the ass, but amazingly it worked!  The pain made those butt muscles spasm and begin to contract.    Now she was able to squeeze one more butt into the perimeter circle.

Then she carefully positioned everybody's butt to maximize body space.  It was a hands on job to be sure, but someone had to do it!   After last year's disappointment, she would tolerate no mistakes!

Once she had everyone placed into position, Phyllis walked around the tub to make sure no behinds were left behind.   Once she was certain that everyone's butt had settled into its proper spot, Phyllis was ready for the next stage of stuffing.

Now it was time to stack people into the center of the tub.  Once this was accomplished, Phyllis beamed with pride.

Voila!  Snap the Picture!

Actually, they had to snap two pictures.  The camera couldn't seem to get everyone in one shot.  Hot Tub Stuffing Photography skills have not kept up with the sport itself.

Two pictures, so what?  Now that she was certain the new record was set, Phyllis handed me both pictures for confirmation.  Center of Attention contended these pictures proved beyond the shadow of a doubt her new team of 2006 Stuffers had set a new record of 24. 

Let's look for ourselves.  The first picture illustrates 85% of the tub.  Very impressive job of tub stuffing!  And look at the team spirit!  Are they proud of themselves or what?

As you see in the picture above, the lower part of the tub is missing from the picture.  So Phyllis had the cameraman switch angles and shoot the lower part.  Good thing she did that... three new faces popped into view.

Knowing how important this record was to Phyllis, for our final count I used computer technology to merge the two pictures as best I could.  Then I added numbers to each individual.  Let's look how it turned out.

As you can see, I counted 24 stuffers above.  Yes, Phyllis was number 24 - That breaks the old record of 23!   Good job! 

Then I noticed the heads of tub stuffers #3 and #4 were missing.  That caused me to look more closely.  Was I being scammed?

That's when I noticed something fishy.  Uh oh, one person was counted twice.  Can you figure out who was counted twice?

I guess this means the record of 23 was tied, but not broken.  What a shame.
 

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