"The Flip" by Christopher A

I was waiting in Walker Longue for the breakfast halls to open up to start. It was my first day back from Pomona College ever since sophomore year. I was groggy and out of submission attempting to gather my thoughts of what this summer holds for me. Luckily, I had my friend Jose to keep me awake as we discussed all the fond memories from last year and how incredibly difficult the math assignments were going to be. As we were catching up, he mentions that we should participate in the talent show and do something that was incredibly ridiculous, but requires a bit of skill. At first, I was listening all of his suggestions half-heartedly knowing that my timid nature wouldn’t even allow me to step foot upon a stage not much less embarrassing myself in front of the entire program. He finally came up with a suggestion we both agreed: flipping a water bottle along with accompanying music. And with that our journey to understand the intricacies of the water bottle flip challenge began. Starting off we just found any adjacent water bottles filled it up with random amounts of water and began flipping water bottles in hopes that it would magically hit the table. However, as we began practicing around the campus we began experimenting with different variables like the shape of the bottle, the amount of water placed inside the bottle, and the minimum amount of force that needs to be exerted by the hand. Every time we went back home for the weekend, we would come back with 20-30 water bottles to make sure our supply never fell short. As we progressively improved, we also had to make sure that we were in sync when flipping the water bottle, and that both bottles land on the table in coordination with the music. This was the most difficult part of the trick because if only one of us lands the bottle on the table, while the other misses or if both of us miss the landing it would ruin our act completely. So in order to ensure that this wouldn’t happen we practiced our every day for 3 weeks. Jose and I would wake up at the break of the dawn and practice by playing

games that would “hone our skills” such as attempting to land the bottle in ridiculous places such as on top of a fire alarm and also having a streak of who could land the water bottle the most times in a row. Our efforts attempting to master the bottle flip inspired the rest of the community to take part in the challenge and sounds of thuds against a table could be heard across campus.
The night of the talent show finally arrived. After weeks of practicing, experimenting, and becoming synchronized with one another it was time to demonstrate the fruits of our labor. As we were awaiting our turn to perform my heart seemed to be beating out my chest and my palms were drenched in sweat. Too many thoughts were passing through my mind such as: What if we over performed the trick in front of everyone and it lost its novelty? What if I miss my landing? What if he misses his? What if we both miss? All those thoughts were quickly pushed aside as the host called us up to the stage. We dragged a table to the center of the stage and placed our water bottles on top of the table and queued the host to start the music. We waited for the proper timing for the music and once we both recognized the designated queue in the song we grabbed the water bottle from the table and flipped it when the beat in the song changed. Both of the water bottles landed in unison with the music! The entire room roared with applause and cheering I was still in complete shock that we actually landed it on queue. The shock quickly subsided when we and some of the audience members began jumping up and ushered us off the stage in excitement. Later that night, Jose and I both acknowledged our hard work but also recognized all the time we spent attempting to follow an internet trend. But even though it was frustrating and difficult to get down I wouldn’t trade the time spent on learning how to flip a water bottle for anything in the world.